• 


MM 


A  PERSIAN 
PEARL 


A  PERSIAN 
PEARL 


AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


CLARENCE  S.  DARROW 


CHICAGO 
C  L.  RICKETTS 

MDCCCCII 


Copyright 

1899 
Clarence  S.  Darrow 


PS 


CONTENTS 

1  A  Persian  Pearl     ....          9 

2  Walt  Whitman     .        .        .        -43 

3  Robert  Burns         ....        77 

4  Realism  in  Literature  and  Art      .      107 

5  The  Skeleton  in  the  Closet  .         .      139 


869830 


A  PERSIAN -PEARL 


A   PERSIAN  PEARL 


HE  reader  and  observer  ;i& 
constantly  reminded  that 
"  there  is  nothing  new  un 
der  the  sun."  We  no  sooner 
fi  n  d  some  rare  gem  o  f 
thought  or  expression  than 
we  discover  that  it  is  only 
an  old  diamond,  polished  anew,  perhaps, 
and  offered  as  an  original  stone.  Neither 
the  reader  nor  the  writer  is  always  aware 
that  the  gem  is  antique  and  the  setting  alone 
is  new. 

The  rich  mine  where  the  treasure  was  first 
found  was  exhausted  in  a  few  brief  years, 
and  then  became  like  all  the  dust  of  all  the 
worlds ;  but  the  gem  polished  and  worn 
by  time  and  use,  ever  sparkles  and  shines, 
regardless  of  the  fact  that  the  miner's  name 
is  forgotten  and  his  work  alone  remains. 
Thus  Nature,  the  great  communist,  pro 
vides  that  the  treasures  of  genius,  like  her 
own  bountiful  gifts  of  sunlight,  rain  and 
air,  shall  remain  the  common  property  of 
all  her  children  while  any  dwell  upon  the 
earth. 

Current  literature  seems  to  point  to  the 
ascendancy  of  what  is  often  termed  the 
"  pessimistic  school."  In  one  sense  this 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 


philosophy  uncrowns  man  and  places  him 
iij  his  proper  relation  to  the  great  universe, 
of  which  he  is  so  small  apart;  but  while  it 
makes  less  of  man,  it  expects  less  from  him, 
and  covers  his  deeds  with  that  cloak  of 
charity,  which  is  the  legitimate  garment  of 
the  great  Unknown.  But  these  modern  re 
flections  on  life  and  its  problems,  its  pur 
poses  and  lessons,  are  far  from  new.  With 
out  venturing  a  guess  as  to  their  origin  or 
age,  we  take  up  that  old  Persian  Pearl, — the 
"  Rubaiyat,"  and  find  on  its  musty  pages 
the  great  thoughts  and  searching  questions, 
which  have  ever  returned  to  man  since  the 
intellect  was  born,  and  which  will  still  re 
main  unanswered  when  the  last  word  shall 
have  been  spoken,  and  the  race  have  run  its 
course. 

It  is  nearly  eight  hundred  years  since 
Omar  Khayyam,  the  Persian  astronomer,  phi 
losopher,  and  poet,  mused  and  wrote  upon 
the  uncertainty  of  life,  the  eternity  of  time 
and  the  mutability  of  human  things.  Since 
the  rose  bush  was  planted  above  his  grave, 
the  material  world  has  been  almost  made 
anew.  Art  and  literature  have  given  count 
less  treasures  to  the  earth,  and  science  has 
solved  its  mysteries  without  end.  But  the 
riddles  of  existence — the  problems  of  life, 

10 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

the  deep  heart  of  the  universe,  the  cause  and 
purpose  and  end  of  all,  are  mysteries  as  dark 
and  inscrutable  as  they  were  eight  centuries 
ago.  To  quote  from  the  Rubaiyat: 

There  was  the  Door  to  which  I  found  no  Key ; 
There  was  the  Veil  thro'  which  I  could  not  see : 

Some  little  talk  awhile  of  Me  and  Thee 
There  was — and  then  no  more  of  Thee  and  Me. 

As  Egypt  is  the  newest  country  visited 
by  the  traveler,  so  this  old  book,  burnished 
by  the  genius  of  FitzGerald,  comes  to  us  as 
the  latest  and  profoundest  word  upon  the 
infinite  mysteries  which  over-shadow  human 
life.  It  seems  to  be  the  last  word,  rather 
than  one  of  the  first,  spoken  to  the  per 
plexed  soul  of  man,  calling  him  from  the 
vain  pursuit  of  vanities,  and  asking  what  all 
of  it  is  about. 

To  an  egoistic,  boasting  age  and  nation, 
this  message,  coming  from  a  far  off  time 
and  a  distant  land,  reminds  us  that  all  wis 
dom  is  garnered  neither  now  nor  here.  This 
Persian  Pearl  remained  unpolished  for  more 
than  seven  hundred  years.  It  was  left  for 
Edward  FitzGerald  carefully  and  patiently 
to  burnish  up  the  gem,  and  make  it  the  thing 
of  beauty  that  we  know. 

It  may  be  that  research  and  study  would 

II 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

reveal  much  of  the  personal  traits  and  pri 
vate  life  of  the  great  Persian  philosopher, 
whose  fame  has  so  outlived  his  clay,  but  with 
these  we  can  have  no  concern.  It  is  not 
important  to  know  his  parents,  or  whether 
he  had  a  wife  or  children,  or  cattle  or  lands. 
All  of  these  are  gone  and  only  his  work  re 
mains.  True,  we  cannot  but  reflect  on  the 
personality  of  the  poet  in  whose  brain  these 
great  thoughts  were  born,  but  we  can  know 
the  man  only  by  knowing  his  works.  Some 
there  are  who  stand  at  a  distance  and  view 
the  acts  of  the  imperfect  beings,  who  at  the 
best  stumble  and  grope  along  the  uncertain 
path  between  the  cradle  and  the  grave.  All 
the  footsteps  that  are  straight  and  true  are 
unnoticed  as  they  pass  by,  but  the  irregular, 
uncertain,  shifting  tracks  stand  out  alone  to 
mark  the  character  of  the  pilgrim,  who 
bore  his  heavy  load  the  best  he  could. 
These  forget  that  every  son  of  man  travels 
an  unbeaten  path — a  road  beset  with  dan 
gers  and  temptations  that  no  other  wanderer 
met;  that  his  footsteps  can  be  judged  only 
in  the  full  knowledge  of  the  strength  and 
light  he  had,  the  burden  that  he  carried,  the 
obstacles  and  temptations  that  he  met,  and 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  every  open  and  se 
cret  motive  that  impelled  him  here  or  there. 

12 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

That  Omar's  steps  were  often  winding 
and  devious,  and  like  those  of  all  other 
mortal  men,  we  gather  from  his  words.  No 
doubt  his  neighbors  delighted  in  gossiping 
about  the  great  philosopher,  and  his  reputa 
tion  was  often  tarnished  by  their  idle  words. 
These  slanderers  have  been  long  forgotten 
— they  could  not  live  upon  the  great  name 
they  sullied,  and  we  should  not  even  know 
he  was  their  prey  except  for  lines  like  these: 

Indeed  the  Idols  I  have  loved  so  long 

Have  done  my  credit  in  Men's  eyes  much  wrong; 

Have  drown'd  my  Glory  in  a  shallow  Cup, 
And  sold  my  reputation  for  a  Song. 

Eight  hundred  years  ago,  as  to-day,  the 
love  of  wine  was  one  of  the  chief  weak 
nesses  of  the  flesh.  Doubtless  the  other 
frailties  of  human  nature  are  of  substantially 
the  same  kind  as  eight  centuries  ago,  for 
while  man  may  change  the  fashion  of  his 
garment  or  religion,  nature  is  ever  consis 
tent  and  persistent,  and  is  the  same  yester 
day,  to-day  and  forever.  But  our  old  numan 
philosopher,  like  our  modern  human  men, 
saw  the  folly  of  his  ways,  and  made  many  a 
brave  resolve,  but  these  good  intentions  and 
solemn  purposes  melted  in  the  sunshine  then 
the  same  as  now. 

13 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Indeed,  indeed,  Repentance  oft  before 
I  swore — but  was  I  sober  when  I  swore? 

And  then  and  then  came  Spring,  and  Rose-in-hand 
My  thread-bare  Penitence  apieces  tore. 

But  Omar  was  greater  than  most  of  the 
weak  and  sinning  children  of  to-day.  His 
own  frailties  taught  him  the  rare  lesson,  that 
of  all  the  virtues,  charity  is  the  chiefest! 
And  as  we  read  tHe  wondrous  product  of 
his  brain  and  understand  the  thoughts  that 
stirred  his  being,  we  can  know  the  man  bet 
ter  than  his  neighbors  who  judged  a  great 
soul  by  the  narrow  vision  of  sordid  minds. 
We  know  that  his  purpose  was  lofty,  and 
above  all  the  mists  and  conflicting  emotions 
and  desires  of  his  life  he  rose  majestic  and 
supreme,  unsullied  by  the  specks  that  can 
only  mar  the  weak.  Let  us  turn  then  to  the 
philosophy  and  poetry  of  this  great  soul  to 
know  the  man,  and  as  figs  are  not  gathered 
of  thistles,  we  may  be  sure  that  broad 
thoughts,  high  aspirations,  and  tender  char 
ity  are  born  only  of  great  minds  and  rare 
men. 

To  Omar  Khayyam,  the  so-called  sins  of 
men  were  not  crimes,  but  weaknesses  inher 
ent  in  their  being  and  beyond  their  power 
to  prevent  or  overcome.  He  knew  that  man 
could  not  separate  himself  from  all  the  rest 

14 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

of  nature ;  and  that  the  rules  and  conditions 
of  his  being  were  as  fixed  and  absolute  as 
the  revolutions  of  the  planets  and  the  chang 
ing  seasons  of  the  year.  Above  man  and 
his  works  he  saw  the  heavy  hand  of  destiny, 
ever  guiding  and  controlling,  ever  moving 
its  creature  forward  to  the  inevitable  fate 
that  all  the  centuries  had  placed  in  store  for 
the  helpless  captive,  marching  shackled  to 
the  block. 

There  have  ever  been  two  views  of  life. 
Both  philosophies  have  been  made  by  man 
and  mostly  for  him.  One  places  him  above 
all  the  rest  of  the  universe,  whose  infinite 
mysteries  are  constantly  revolving  and 
changing  before  his  hazy,  wondering  gaze. 
The  portion  of  the  world  that  comes  near 
est  to  his  eyes  he  cannot  understand,  and  his 
own  existence  is  a  riddle  that  all  the  ages 
have  not  solved.  And  yet,  amidst  it  all,  one 
system  teaches  that  man  rules  supreme, — 
and  the  fate  of  all  the  worlds,  or  of  all  that 
may  exist  thereon,  has  no  relation  to  his 
own.  The  other  peers  into  the  thick  dark 
ness  that  hangs  above,  and  can  see  no  light, 
it  does  not  understand  and  will  not  guess ; 
the  endless  mysteries  are  not  for  mortal 
man  to  solve.  Its  devotees  feel  themselves 
part  of  a  mighty  whole,  and  are  powerless 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

to  separate  their  lives  from  all  the  rest,  and 
would  not  dare  to  undertake  it  if  they  could. 
They  know  that  in  the  great,  unlimited  uni 
verse  they  are  less  than  the  tiniest  bubble  in 
the  wildest,  angriest  sea.  That  in  the  words 
of  the  Rubaiyat : 

We  are  no  other  than  a  moving  row 

Of  magic  Shadow-shapes  that  come  and  go 

Round  with  this  Sun-illumined  Lantern  held 
In  Midnight  by  the  Master  of  the  Show. 

Omar  Khayyam  was  probably  not  the  first, 
certainly  not  the  last,  to  feel  the  impotence 
of  man  in  the  great  power  which  animates 
the  whole.  He  could  have  no  faith  in  the 
cruel  religious  tenets,  which  eight  centuries 
ago  in  Persia,  as  ever  since  in  the  Christian 
world,  have  taught  the  responsibility  of  the 
helpless  victim  for  the  great,  blind  work  in 
which  he  had  no  part.  He  seemed  to  think 
that  back  of  all  the  universe,  some  intelli 
gent  power  moved  and  controlled  the  world 
for  some  purpose  unknown  to  all  except 
himself,  but  he  could  not  think  that  man 
was  in  any  way  accountable  for  the  whole. 
To  him,  the  great  master  sent  us  here  or 
there  to  suit  his  will,  and  it  was  left  for  us 
only  to  obey  his  mighty  power.  The  indi 
vidual  units  of  humanity  were  to  him  only: 

16 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Impotent  Pieces  of  the  Game  He  plays 
Upon  this  checker-board  of  Nights  and  Days ; 

Hither  and  thither  moves,  and  checks,  and  slays, 
And  one  by  one  back  in  the  Closet  lays. 

Even  this  does  not  sufficiently  express  his 
thought  of  man's  absolute  irresponsibility 
for  his  acts. 

We  have  all  met  the  parallel  drawn  be 
tween  man  and  the  pottery  fashioned  by  the 
moulder  from  the  clay.  Perhaps  there  is  no 
better  illustration  of  the  helplessness  of  the 
human  being  in  the  hands  of  the  power  that 
fashioned  and  shaped  him,  even  ages  before 
his  birth, — the  uncontrollable  force  that  de 
termined  the  length  of  his  body,  the  color 
of  his  hair,  the  size  and  shape  of  his  brain 
and  the  contour  of  his  face.  But  the  com 
parison  made  in  the  beautiful  stanza  wrought 
by  Omar,  and  retouched  and  gilded  by  the 
magic  of  FitzGerald,  is  wondrously  power 
ful  and  fine.  The  poet  ranges  his  poor 
pieces  of  pottery  in  line,  each  representing 
a  man;  each  imperfect  in  structure  or  form, 
like  all  the  other  creatures  ever  made. 
These  poor,  imperfect  vessels,  fresh  from 
the  potter,  each  pleads  its  cause  and  makes 
excuses  for  its  faults. 

After  a  momentary  silence  spake 
Some  vessel  of  a  more  ungainly  Make : 

"They  sneer  at  me  for  leaning  all  awry: 
What!  did  the  Hand  then  of  the  Potter  shake?" 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

When  will  humanity  be  great  enough  and 
good  enough  to  distinguish  between  the 
fault  of  the  potter  and  the  fault  of  the  pot ! 
When  can  it  look  over  the  myriads  of  hu 
man  beings,  each  with  his  flaws  and  limita 
tions,  and  pity  instead  of  blame  1 

The  history  of  the  past  is  a  record  of 
man's  cruel  inhumanity  to  man;  of  one  im 
perfect  vessel  accusing  and  shattering  an 
other  for  the  faults  of  both.  In  ancient 
times  and  amongst  savage  tribes,  the  old,  the 
infirm,  and  the  diseased  were  led  out  and 
put  to  death;  even  later,  the  maniac  and 
imbecile  were  fettered,  chained,  beaten,  and 
imprisoned  because  they  were  different 
from  other  men.  The  world  has  grown  a 
little  wiser,  and  perhaps  humaner,  as  the 
centuries  have  passed  away.  We  have 
learned  to  build  asylums,  and  treat  the  af 
flicted  with  tenderness  and  care.  We  have 
learned  not  to  blame  the  dwarf  for  his  stat 
ure;  the  hunchback  for  his  load;  the  deaf 
because  they  cannot  hear,  and  the  blind  be 
cause  they  cannot  see.  We  do  not  expect 
the  midget  to  carry  the  giant's  load,  or  the 
cripple  to  triumph  in  a  contest  of  speed. 
We  establish  a  regulation  size  for  policemen 
and  soldiers,  but  we  do  not  put  a  man  to 
death  because  his  stature  is  below  the  stand* 

18 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

ard  fixed.  We  forgive  the  size  of  the  foot, 
the  length  of  the  arm,  the  shade  of  the  hair, 
the  color  of  the  eye,  and  even  the  form  of 
the  skull.  But,  while  we  do  not  blame  a 
man  because  he  has  an  ill-shaped  head,  we 
punish  him  because  the  brain  within  con 
forms  to  the  bone  which  molds  its  form. 
The  world  has  made  guns  and  swords,  racks 
and  dungeons,  chains  and  whips,  blocks  and 
gibbets,  and  to  these  have  dragged  an  end 
less  procession  thro7  all  the  past.  It  has 
penned  and  'maimed,  tortured  and  killed, 
because  the  potter's  work  was  imperfect  and 
the  clay  was  weak.  During  all  the  ages  it 
has  punished  mental  deformity  as  a  crime, 
and  without  pity  or  regret  has  crushed  the 
imperfect  vessels  beneath  its  feet.  Every 
jail,  every  scaffold,  every  victim — is  a  monu 
ment  to  its  cruelty  and  blind  unreasoning 
wrath.  Whether  it  was  a  fire  kindled  to 
burn  a  heretic  in  Geneva, — a  gibbet  erected 
to  kill  a  witch  in  Salem, — or  a  scaffold  made 
to  put  to  death  an  ordinary  "criminal,"  it 
has  ever  been  the  same, — the  punishment  of 
the  creature  for  the  creator's  fault.  There 
might  be  some  excuse  if  man  could  turn 
from  the  frail,  cracked  vessels,  and  bring  to 
trial  the  great  potter  for  the  imperfect  work 
of  his  hand. 

19 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

But  we  live  in  the  shadows ;  we  can  see 
only  the  causes  and  effects  that  are  the  clos 
est  to  our  eyes.  If  the  clouds  would  rise, 
and  the  sun  shine  bright,  and  our  vision 
reach  out  into  time  and  space,  we  might 
find  that  these  cracked  vessels  serve  as  high 
a  purpose  in  a  great,  broad  scheme,  as  the 
finest  clay,  wrought  in  the  most  beautiful 
and  perfect  form.  The  following  stanza 
was  born  of  this  philosophy  and  would  in 
evitably  come  from  the  broad,  charitable 
brain  that  had  studied  the  creeds  that  told 
of  the  cruelty  of  the  great  Maker,  but 
whose  brain  and  conscience  had  not  been 
stunted  and  warped  by  their  palsying  dog 
mas: 

Then  said  a  Second — "  Ne'er  a  peevish  Boy 
Would  break  the  Bowl  from  which  he  drank  in  joy; 

And  he  that  with  his  hand  the  Vessel  made 
Will  surely  not  in  after  Wrath  destroy." 

The  cruel  religious  dogmas,  which  in 
Omar's  land  and  Age,  as  in  our  own,  black 
ened  both  man  and  his  Maker,  had  no  ter 
rors  for  a  soul  like  his.  He  could  not  be 
lieve  in  eternal  punishment.  The  doctrine 
was  a  slander,  alike  to  God  and  man.  He 
felt  something  of  the  greatness  of  a  force 
that  could  permeate  and  move  the  countless 
worlds,  which  make  up  the  limitless,  unfath- 

20 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

omed  infinite  we  call  the  Universe.  He  saw 
in  man  one  of  the  smallest  and  most  insig 
nificant  toys  created  by  this  power  to  serve 
some  unknown  end;  and  he  could  not  be 
lieve  that  the  Master-Builder  would  demand 
of  his  imperfect  children  more  than  he  had 
furnished  them  the  strength  to  give.  His 
faith  in  the  justice  of  man's  case  before  the 
great  Judge  is  shown  in  the  following 
stanza : 

Oh  Thou,  who  didst  with  pitfall  and  with  gin 
Beset  the  Road  I  was  to  wander  in, 

Thou  wilt  not  with  Predestin'd  Evil  round 
Enmesh,  and  then  impute  my  Fall  to  Sin! 

But  even  more  strongly  he  presents  the 
case  of  God  against  man,  and  man  against 
God,  for  all  the  crimes  and  miseries  and 
sufferings  of  the  world.  It  would  doubtless 
be  difficult  in  all  the  literature  of  the  earth 
to  find  a  juster,  bolder  statement  of  the  old 
question  of  the  responsibility  for  sin.  To 
some  minds,  this  strong  expression  may 
seem  like  blasphemy,  but  it  is  manly  and 
courageous,  logical  and  just. 

Oh,  Thou,  who  Man  of  baser  Earth  didst  make 
And  ev'n  with  Paradise  devise  the  Snake ; 

For  all  the  Sin  wherewith  the  face  of  Man 
Is  blacken'd — Man's  forgiveness    give — and  take ! 

21 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

This  is  not  the  cringing  prayer  of  the 
coward,  who  asks  God's  forgiveness  to  ap 
pease  his  wrath,  but  the  utterance  of  a  noble 
soul,  who  asks  forgiveness  for  the  shortcom 
ings  of  his  life,  and  at  the  same  time  par 
dons  his  Maker  for  creating  him  as  he  did. 
The  world  has  heard  much  of  man's  duty 
to  God,  of  the  responsibility  which  the  un- 
consulted,  fragile  children  of  a  day  owe  to 
the  power  that  is  responsible  for  all.  It  is 
time  we  heard  more  of  the  duty  of  God  to 
man;  the  responsibility  of  the  Creator  for 
making  " conscious  something"  out  of  un 
thinking,  unfeeling  clay. 

"Oh,  many  a  cup  of  this  forbidden  Wine 
Must  drown  the  memory  of  that  insolence!  " 

The  world  has  talked  the  same  nonsense 
of  the  duty  of  children  to  parents.  It  has 
taught  this,  because  parents  are  larger,  and 
have  the  brute  power  to  compel  obedience 
to  their  demands.  All  the  duties  are  from 
parents  to  children, —  from  those  who 
thoughtlessly,  wantonly,  to  satisfy  their  own 
desires,  call  into  conscious  being  a  human 
life, — send  another  soul  with  all  its  responsi 
bilities  out  on  the  great,  wide  sea,  to  be 
tossed  and  buffeted  and  torn,  until, mangled 
and  dead,  it  is  thrown  out  upon  the  sands  to 
bleach. 

22 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

But  after  all,  whether  it  was  wise  or  un 
wise,  just  or  unjust,  we  have  been  placed 
upon  the  earth  as  sentient  beings  and 
charged  with  the  responsibilities  of  life  ;  and 
practical  philosophy  asks  the  question,  what 
does  it  mean,  and  how  shall  we  take  the 
journey  which  a  higher  power  has  decreed 
that  we  shall  make  ? 

The  poet  and  the  dreamer  and  the  copy 
book  have  told  us  much  of  the  meaning  of 
life.  We  often  repeat  these  lessons  to  make 
ourselves  believe  them  true.  When  we  feel 
a  doubt  casting  its  shadow  across  our  path, 
we  read  them  once  again  to  drive  the  doubt 
away;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all,  we  know  ab 
solutely  nothing  of  the  scheme,  or  whether 
there  is  any  kind  of  plan.  We  are  only 
whistlers  passing  through  a  graveyard,  with 
our  ears  tied  close  and  our  eyes  shut  fast.  It 
would  surely  be  as  well  to  step  boldly  up 
and  read  the  inscription  on  the  marble  tomb 
and  then  walk  round  and  look  at  the  vacant, 
grinning  space  upon  the  other  side,  calmly 
waiting  to  record  our  name. 

Measured  by  the  philosophy  of  to-day, 
Omar  Khayyam  was  a  pessimist ;  he  was  not 
gifted  with  second  sight.  He  saw  no  spooks 
and  ghosts,  and  he  would  not  look  out  into 
the  midnight,  and  declare  that  his  eyes  dis- 

23 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

cerned  a  glorious  rainbow,  bright  with  fresh 
colors  and  unbounded  hopes.  All  the  proud 
promises  and  brave  assumptions  and  false 
theories  of  the  world  were  to  him  a  mockery 
and  a  sham.  The  mysticisms  of  religion 
and  philosophy  alike  were  hollow  and  bare. 
The  "  jarring  sects  "  and  quibbling  doctors, 
with  tneir  fine-spun  webs,  were  worthy  the 
attention  only  of  children  and  professors. 
This  is  the  way  he  put  them  down : 

Myself  when  young  did  eagerly  frequent 
Doctor  and  Saint,  and  heard  great  argument 

About  it  and  about ;  but  evermore 
Came  out  by  the  same  door  wherein  I  went. 

While  it  is  true  that  in  the  common  mean 
ing  Omar  was  a  pessimist,  still  this  word, 
like  many  others,  is  rarely  well  defined.  All 
men  understand  the  uncertainties  of  life, 
the  disappointments  and  troubles  of  exist 
ence,  and  the  infinitesimal  time  that  is  re 
luctantly  parceled  out  to  each  mortal  from 
the  eternity  that  had  no  beginning  and  will 
have  no  end.  The  pessimist  looks  at  all  the 
hurry  and  rush,  the  torment  and  strife,  the 
ambitions  and  disappointments  that  are  the 
common  lot,  and  can  see  no  prizes  so  tempt 
ing  as  rest  and  peace.  He  makes  the  most 
of  what  he  has,  and  looks  contentedly  for- 

24 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

ward  to  the  long  sleep  that  brings  relief  at 
last. 

Omar  Khayyam  was  not  deceived  by  all 
the  glitter  and  bustle  of  the  world.  He  saw 
the  stage  from  behind  the  curtain,  as  well  as 
from  the  circle  before  the  scenes.  He 
looked  on  the  great  surging  mass  of  men, 
ever  pulling  and  pushing,  striving  and  try 
ing,  working  and  fighting,  as  if  all  eternity 
was  theirs  in  which  to  build,  and  all  un 
mindful  of  the  silent  bookkeeper,  who 
could  be  deceived  by  no  false  entries,  and 
ever  remembered  to  demand  his  dues.  Of 
life  he  said : 

'Tis  but  a  Tent  where  takes  his  one  day's  rest 
A  Sultan  to  the  Realm  of  Death  addrest  ; 
The  Sultan    rises,  and  the  dark  Ferrash 
Strikes,  and  prepares  it  for  another  Guest.  _,„ 

In  the  presence  of  all  that  the  world  had 
to  offer, — while  honors  and  glories  fell  fast 
upon  his  head,  he  still  could  not  close  his 
eyes  to  the  facts  of  existence,  and  the  mor 
tality  of  human  things.  It  may  be  that  he 
mused  too  much  upon  the  great  fact  that 
ever  sternly  faces  life, — the  great  being  be 
fore  whom  all  monarchs  bow,  and  in  whose 
presence  all  crowns  are  shattered.  To  the 
boasting  and  forgetful,  these  words  may  not 
be  pleasant,  but  they  still  are  true : 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Why,  all  the  Saints  and  Sages  who  discuss'd 
Of  the  Two  worlds  so  learnedly  are  thrust 

Like  foolish  Prophets  forth ;  their  words  to  Scorn 
Are  scatter'd  and  their  Mouths  are  stopt  with  Dust. 

Neither   the   great   nor   the   good  could 
avoid   the   common   fate;     the    unyieldin 
messenger  came  alike  to  call  the  proud  Su 
tan  and  the  good  and  kindly  friend. 

For  some  we  loved,  the  loveliest  and  the  best 
That  from  his  Vintage  rolling  Time  has  prest, 

Have  drunk  their  Cup  a  Round  or  two  before, 
And  one  by  one  crept  silently  to  rest. 

Death  is  so  common  that  we  sometimes 
wonder  why  men  make  plans, — why  they 
ever  toil  or  spin.  But,  of  course,  we  can  see 
only  the  leaves  that  fall  from  other  stalks. 
Rarely  do  we  feel  that  all  this  has  a  personal 
meaning,  and  that  our  turn  soon  must  come. 
Omar  looked  at  the  stricken  friends  around 
him,  and  thus  mused: 

Whether  at  Naishapur  or  Babylon, 
Whether  the  Cup  with  sweet  or  bitter  run, 

The  Wine  of  Life  keeps  oozing  drop  by  drop, 
The  leaves  of  Life  keep  falling  one  by  one. 

It  has  never  required  the  great  or  the 
learned  to  note  the  constant  falling  of  the 
leaves  and  the  ceaseless  running  of  the  sands. 
It  is  mainly  from  this  that  systems  of  religion 

26 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

have  been  evolved.  Man  has  ever  sought 
to  make  himself  believe  that  these  things 
are  not  what  they  seem  ;  that,  in  reality, 
death  is  only  birth,  and  the  body  but  a  prison 
for  the  soul.  This  may  be  true,  but  the 
constant  cries  and  pleadings  of  the  ages  have 
brought  back  no  answering  sound  to  prove 
that  death  is  anything  but  death. 

Our  old  philosopher  could  not  accept 
these  pleasing  creeds  on  faith.  He  pre 
ferred  to  plant  his  feet  upon  the  shifting 
doubtful  sands,  rather  than  deceive  himself 
by  alluring  and  delusive  hopes.  Upon  the 
old  question  of  immortality,  he  could  an 
swer  only  what  he  knew,  and  this  is  what  he 
said : 

Strange,  is  it  not  ?  that  of  the  myriads  who 
Before  us  pass'd  the  door  of  Darkness  through 

Not  one  returns  to  tell  us  of  the  Road 
Which  to  discover  we  must  travel  too. 

This  stanza  is  perhaps  gloomy  and  hope 
less,  but  it  is  thoughtful,  and  brave,  and 
beautiful.  We  may  seek  to  be  children  if 
we  will,  but  whatever  our  desires,  we  can 
not  strangle  the  questions  that  ever  rise  be 
fore  our  minds  and  will  not  be  put  away. 
To  our  own  souls  we  should  be  just  and 
true.  Peace  and  comfort,  when  gained  at 

27 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

the  sacrifice  of  courage  and  integrity,  are 
purchased  at  too  high  a  price.  The  truth 
alone  can  make  us  free,  and 

"  One  flash  of  it  within  the  tavern  caught 
Better  than  in  the  Temple  lost  outright." 

Yes,  one  flash  of  the  true  light  is  better  than 
all  the  creeds  and  dogmas.  It  is  better,  even 
though  these  hold  out  the  fairest  prospects 
and  the  brightest  dreams,  and  the  flash  of 
true  light  is  only  the  blackest  midnight. 

Not  only  would  Omar  take  away  the  hope 
of  Heaven,  but  he  leaves  us  with  little  to 
boast  while  we  live  upon  the  earth.  Our 
short,  obscure  existence  is  not  felt  or  noticed 
in  the  great  sweep  of  time  and  the  resistless 
movement  of  the  years.  Along  the  path 
way  of  the  world  we  leave  scarce  a  footprint, 
and  our  loudest  voice  and  bravest  words  are 
as  completely  lost  as  if  spoken  in  the  pres 
ence  of  Niagara's  roar. 

And  fear  not  lest  Existence  closing  your 

Account  and  mine,  should  know  the  like  no  more ; 

The  Eternal  Saki  from  that  Bowl  has  pour'd 
Millions  of  Bubbles  like  us,  and  will  pour. 

The  weakness  and  littleness  of  man  has 
been  the  subject  of  endless  words  before 
and  since,  but  never  has  poet  put  it  more 
strongly  than  here.  The  Eternal  Saki — the 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

great  wine  pourer,  tips  his  pitcher  and  turns 
out  millions  of  bubbles,  and  still  they  come 
forever,  and  each  of  us  is  one. 

But  however  brave  and  stoical  Omar 
seems  to  be,  still  he  feels  sad  when  witness 
ing  the  flight  of  years  and  the  ravages  of 
time.  It  is,  of  course,  useless  to  fight  the 
inevitable,  and  the  strongest  will  must  bend 
and  break  before  the  weakening  touch  of 
age.  Whether  it  is  good  or  bad,  all  cling 
to  existence,  and  sadly  and  reluctantly  let  go 
the  tendrils  that  hold  to  pulsing  life.  The 
fading  of  Spring  and  youth,  and  the  coming 
of  Autumn  with  its  suggestions  of  the  ap 
proaching  end,  is  most  beautiful  and  touch 
ing  in  this  marvelous  book : 

Yet,  Ah,  that  Spring  should  vanish  with  the  Rose! 
That  Youth's  sweet-scented  manuscript  should  close ! 

The  Nightingale  that  in  the  branches  sang, 
Ah  whence,  and  whither  flown  again,  who  knows ! 

This  strain  of  sadness  is  sincere  and  true. 
To  recognize  the  inevitable  and  not  pretend 
to  deceive  one's  self  is  one  thing,  but  to 
think  that  all  is  just  and  wise  and  best  may 
be  quite  another.  Omar  felt  that  fate  was 
inexorable,  relentless  and  hard. 

The  moving  Finger  writes;  and  having  writ, 
Moves  on ;  nor  all  your  piety  nor  Wit 

Shall  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  line, 
Nor  all  your  Tears  wash  out  a  Word  of  it. 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

He  would  have  tempered  her  hardness 
with  a  little  human  love  and  tender  pity, 
and  bade  the  great  Recorder  leave  much 
untold.  He  recognized  the  fact  that  the 
scheme  could  not  be  changed,  and  that  even 
our  brief  existence  depended  upon  our  sub 
servience  to  the  great  will  that  would  neither 
break  nor  bend ;  but  he  still  regretted  that 
it  was  not  better  and  kinder  and  more  for 
giving  than  it  is.  There  is  almost  a  wail  in 
the  strain  of  sadness  in  which  he  laments 
the  rigor  of  unyielding  fate. 

Would  that  some  winged  Angel  ere  too  late 
Arrest  the  yet  unfolded  Roll  of  fate, 

And  make  the  stern  Recorder  otherwise 
Enregister,  or  quite  obliterate ! 

Ah  Love  !  could  you  and  I  with  him  conspire 
To  grasp  this  sorry  Scheme  of  Things  entire, 
Would  we  not  shatter  it  to  bits — and  then 
Re-mould  it  nearer  to  the  Heart's  Desire? 

It  is  impossible  to  live  to  a  moderate  age 
without  forming  some  idea  of  the  conduct 
of  life ;  this  may  be  practical  or  theoretical, 
or  both.  But  either  with  or  without  con 
sciousness  we  construct  some  plan  of  life 
and  its  purpose,  and  our  daily  conduct  con 
forms  more  or  less  closely  to  the  theory  that 
we  accept.  The  religionist  teaches  that  the 
hope  of  future  rewards  and  punishments 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

must  be  kept  before  the  mind,  or  man  would 
give  himself  completely  to  indulgence,  and 
the  race  would  die.  This  theory  loses  sight 
of  the  fact  that  Nature  herself  is  constantly 
wiping  out  those  who  defy  her  laws,  and 
preserving  longest  those  who  conform  to 
the  conditions  she  has  imposed.  Excesses 
of  all  kinds  destroy  and  weaken  existence, 
and  bring  the  natural  penalty,  which  leaves 
only  the  more  rational  and  temperate  to  per 
petuate  life  upon  the  earth.  Of  course 
these  observations  apply,  not  to  the  fashions 
and  forms  and  conventions  of  man,  except 
so  far  as  these  conform  to  the  unbending 
laws  of  nature,  which  must  ever  be  supreme. 
From  Omar  Khayyam's  views  of  life,  he 
could  not  but  think  that  it  was  the  duty  of 
every  pilgrim  to  get  the  most  he  could  in 
his  journey  through  the  world.  But,  really, 
all  accept  this  obvious  fact.  The  Religion 
ist  says  merely  that  man  should  be  less 
happy  here, — that  his  enjoyment  may  be  the 
greater  in  the  world  to  come.  It  is  not  in 
the  theory  as  to  life's  purpose  that  men  have 
differed,  but  as  to  the  conduct  that  really 
brings  the  greatest  happiness  when  the  last 
balance  has  been  struck,  and  the  book  is 
forever  closed.  Our  poet  could  not  see  the 
days  and  years  go  by  and  life's  sands  swiftly 

3* 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

running  out,  and  still  postpone  all  enjoy 
ment  to  some  far  off,  misty  time.  He  be 
lieved  in  the  reality  of  to-day,  and  that  be 
yond  the  present  all  was  but  a  vision  and  a 
dream.  In  his  day,  as  in  ours,  the  priests 
held  out  the  hope  of  heaven  and  fear  of 
hell,  to  keep  the  wanderer  in  the  narrow 
path.  But  Omar  was  a  philosopher  and  as 
tronomer.  He  peered  into  the  infinite 
depths  of  endless  space,  and  could  see  only 
moving,  whirling  worlds  like  ours,  and  could 
find  no  place  for  heaven  or  hell.  What 
the  mysteries  of  astronomy  could  not  re 
veal,  the  theories  of  life  left  equally  in  the 
dark.  While  he  refused  to  be  moved  by  a 
literal  heaven  and  hell,  he  yet  felt  a  deep 
meaning  attached  to  these  old  religious 
views.  The  humane,  progressive  thinkers 
of  to-day  have  scarcely  gone  beyond  this  old 
seer,  who  lived  eight  centuries  ago  and  pon 
dered  the  same  problems  over  which  our 
theologians  wrangle  now.  The  following 
stanza  gives  an  interpretation  of  these  reli 
gious  dogmas,  which  for  beauty  and  breadth 
and  insight  seems  to  be  the  latest  product  of 
ethical,  religious  thought,  instead  of  the 
musty  musings  of  an  old  pagan,  who  has 
been  dust  almost  eight  hundred  years: 

I  sent  my  Soul  through  the  Invisible, 
Some  letter  of  that  After-Life  to  spell ; 

And  by  and  by  my  Soul  returned  to  me, 
And  answer'd  "I  Myself  am  Heav'n  and  Hell." 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

If  these  places  are  but  states  of  conscious 
ness,  it  of  course  must  follow  that  we  make 
our  own  heaven  and  hell,  and  it  is,  there 
fore,  the  right  and  duty  of  each,  not  to  wait 
for  some  dreamy  mirage  born  of  old  super 
stition,  unmanly  fear,  and  unfounded  faith, 
but  to  take  the  present,  fleeting  moment, 
and  with  it  do  the  best  we  can.  This  stanza 
may  seem  painfully  sad  and  hopeless,  but  it 
contains  the  true  philosophy  of  life : 

Ah,  make  the  most  of  what  we  yet  may  spend, 
Before  we  too  into  the  Dust  descend ; 

Dust  unto  Dust,  and  under  Dust,  to  lie, 
Sans  Wine,  sans  Song,  sans  Singer,  and — sans  End ! 

Not  only  is  the  present  the  all  important 
time,  but  the  realities  know  nothing  except 
the  present.  There  is  no  moment  but  the 
one  that's  here, — the  past  is  gone,  the  next 
one  has  not  come,  and  he  that  misses  the 
present  loses  all  there  is. 

Some  for  the  Glories  of  This  World,  and  some 
Sigh  for  the  Prophet's  paradise  to  come ; 

Ah,  take  the  Cash,  and  let  the  Credit  go, 
Nor  heed  the  rumble  of  a  distant  Drum ! 

As  to  how  the  pleasures  of  life  are  to  be 
found,  men  never  have  agreed  and  never 
can.  Our  view  of  pleasure,  like  our  feel 
ings  and  emotions,  grows  from  the  condition 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

of  our  being,  and  is  the  result  of  causes 
that  we  did  not  create  and  cannot  control. 
Some  there  are  who  look  at  all  the  strife  and 
suffering  of  the  world,  and  feel  no  kinship 
to  the  great,  surging  mass  that  moves  and 
feels  and  thinks.  These  walk  silently  along 
the  path  alone,  oblivious  alike  to  the  pleas 
ures  and  the  sufferings  of  the  world  around. 
Others  there  are  whose  souls  are  so  sensi 
tive  that  they  feel  the  joys  and  sorrows  of 
the  world,  and  who  cannot  separate  their 
lives  from  all  the  sentient,  moving  things 
that  teem  and  swarm  upon  the  earth.  Both 
can  and  must  feel  those  appetites  and  desires 
that  are  ever  incident  to  being.  Without 
these,  nature  could  neither  bring  life  upon 
the  earth  nor  sustain  it  when  it  came.  It  is 
in  the  balancing  of  these  feelings  that  nature 
almost  necessarily  makes  the  imperfect  man. 
Unless  the  emotions  and  desires  are  suffi 
ciently  developed,  the  creature  is  cold,  im 
passive,  pulseless  clay.  If  too  much  de 
veloped,  it  runs  the  risk  of  sacrificing  the 
higher  emotions  and  more  lasting  enjoy 
ments  to  the  fleeting,  sensual  pleasures  of 
the  hour.  Almost  every  person  must  stand 
upon  one  side  or  the  other  of  this  shadowy 
line,  which  no  man  can  see,  and  which  he 
would  have  no  power  to  cross,  even  if  he 
knew  where  it  ran. 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Perhaps  the  Rubaiyat  shows  too  much 
leaning  toward  the  sensual ;  too  great  fond 
ness  for  the  vine.  Some  of  the  allusions 
were  perhaps  symbolical,  but  still,  Omar 
doubtless  was  very  fond  of  wine  and  found 
in  its  use  one  of  the  chief  purposes  of  life. 
Philosophy  and  theology  could  not  satisfy 
his  mind.  These  furnished  only  visionary, 
inconsistent  theories  of  existence,  utterly 
barren  and  futile, — wholly  purposeless  and 
wrong.  After  studying  and  wrangling  and 
disputing,  he  threw  them  to  the  winds  and 
reached  out  for  the  realities, — however 
transitory  and  unsatisfactory  these  realities 
seemed  to  be.  His  exchange  of  theories 
and  mysticisms  for  wine  may  be  symbolical 
or  not,  but  whether  literal  or  figurative,  he 
could  hardly  be  cheated  by  the  trade.  This 
is  the  way  he  relates  the  story  of  his  change 
of  heart: 

You  know,  My  Friends,  with  what  a  brave  Carouse 
I  made  a  Second  Marriage  in  my  house ; 

Divorced  old  barren  Reason  from  my  Bed, 
And  took  the  Daughter  of  the  Vine  to  spouse. 

After  throwing  the  theoretical  philosophy 
to  the  winds,  he  turned  to  the  vine  to  learn 
what  life  really  meant.  No  doubt,  the  ves 
sel  here  is  figuratively  used.  It  might  mean 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

a  wine  cup,  it  might  mean  feeding  a  beggar, 
it  might  mean  a  warm  room  and  comfort 
able  dress.  It  meant  something  besides 
the  intangible,  barren  theories,  which  have 
ever  furnished  theologians  and  professors 
with  the  pleasing  occupation  of  splitting 
hairs  and  quibbling  about  the  meaning  of 
terms. 

Then  to  the  Lip  of  this  poor  earthen  Urn 
I  lean'd,  the  secret  of  my  Life  to  learn  ; 

And  Lip  to  Lip  it  murmur'd — "While  you  live, 
Drink! — for,  once  dead,  you  never  shall  return." 

Neither  would  it  do  to  postpone  the  pleas 
ures  of  the  wine, — time  is  fleeting,  and 
every  hour  may  be  the  last.  Life  has  no 
space  for  resolutions  or  regrets.  These 
only  rob  existence  of  a  portion  of  the  poor 
prizes  that  she  stingily  scatters  into  the  ring 
to  be  fought  and  scrambled  after  by  the 
crowd. 

Come,  fill  the  Cup,  and  in  the  fire  of  Spring 
Your  Winter-garment  of  Repentance  fling ; 

The  Bird  of  Time  has  but  a  little  way 
To  flutter— and  the  Bird  is  on  the  Wing. 

It  is  not  the  dainty  sipping  of  the  wine 
that  our  poet  commends  for  the  peace  of 
the  soul,  but  the  giving  up  of  self  to  the  en 
joyment  of  the  hour, — the  complete  aban- 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

donment  that  forgets   time   and   space   and 
eternity,  and  knows  only  the  moment  that  is. 

Perplext  no  more  with  Human  or  Divine, 
To-morrow's  tangle  to  the  winds  resign, 
And  lose  your  fingers  in  the  tresses  of 
The  Cypress-slender  Minister  of  Wine. 

This  stanza  may  mean  wine, — it  may  mean 
any  strong  purpose,  or  intense  emotion  that 
takes  possession  of  our  life, — that  makes  us 
its  devoted  slave,  anxious  to  dare  or  suffer 
for  the  privilege  of  enlisting  in  a  cause. 
That  Omar  knew  something  of  life's  pleas 
ures  and  realities,  besides  the  wine  he 
lauded,  is  apparent  from  his  work.  His  in 
sight  was  so  deep  that  he  could  not  be  de 
ceived  by  the  tinsel  and  glitter  and  trappings 
that  make  up  the  vain  show  with  which  men 
deceive  others,  and  attempt  to  beguile  them 
selves.  In  Persia  eight  hundred  years  ago, 
there  were  probably  no  twenty-story  build 
ings,  no  railroads,  nor  street  cars,  nor  tele 
graph  wires ;  perhaps  no  chambers  of  com 
merce,  nor  banks ;  but  no  doubt  these  old 
Mohammedans  had  much  as  useless  and 
vain  and  artificial  as  these  inventions  of  a 
later  day.  There  was  then,  as  now,  the 
master  with  all  the  false  luxury  that  idleness 
could  create  in  that  land  and  time ;  there 

37 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

was  also,  as  to-day,  the  hopeless  slave,  whose 
only  purpose  on  the  earth  was  to  minister  to 
the  parasite  and  knave ;  and  both  of  these, 
master  and  man  alike,  were  helpless  prison 
ers  in  the  schemes  and  devices,  the  machin 
ery  and  inventions,  the  worthless  appendages 
and  appliances  that  bound  and  enslaved 
them,  and  that  have  held  the  world  with 
ever  increasing  strength  to  the  present  day. 
But  Omar  knew  that  all  of  this  was  a  de 
lusion  and  a  snare; — that  it  failed  of  the 
purpose  that  it  meant  to  serve.  He  turned 
from  these  vanities  to  a  simpler,  saner  life, 
'  and  found  the  sweetest  and  most  lasting 
pleasures  close  to  the  heart  of  that  great  na 
ture,  to  which  man  must  return  from  all  his 
devious  wanderings,  like  the  lost  child  that 
comes  back  to  its  mother's  breast.  What 
simpler  and  higher  happiness  has  all  the  ar 
tificial  civilization  of  the  world  been  able  to 
create  than  this : 

A  Book  of  Verses  underneath  the  bough, 
A  Jug  of  Wine,  a  Loaf  of  Bread  and  Thou 

Beside  me  singing  in  the  Wilderness — 
Oh,  Wilderness  were  Paradise  enow. 

It  is  these  bright  spots  in  life's  desert  that 
make  us  long  to  stay.  These  hours  of 
friendship  and  close  companionship  of  con 
genial  souls  that  seem  the  only  pleasures 

38 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

that  are  real,  and  from  which  no  regrets 
can  come.  It  is  away  from  the  bustle  and 
glare  of  the  world,  above  its  petty  strifes, 
and  its  cruel  taunts,  in  the  quiet  and  trust  of 
true  comradeship,  that  we  forget  the  evil 
and  fall  in  love  with  life.  And  our  old  phi 
losopher,  with  all  his  pessimism,  with  all  his 
doubts  and  disappointments,  knew  that  here 
was  the  greatest  peace  and  happiness  that 
weary,  mortal  man  could  know.  In  the 
presence  of  the  friends  he  loved,  and  the 
comradeship  of  congenial  lives,  he  could 
not  but  regret  the  march  of  time  and  the 
flight  of  years,  which  heralded  the  coming 
of  the  end.  Poor  Omar  was  like  all  the  rest 
that  ever  lived — he  looked  forward  into  the 
dark,  unknown  sea,  and  shuddered  as  he 
felt  the  rising  water  on  his  feet. 

All  of  us  know  how  small  and  worthless 
are  our  lives  when  measured  by  the  infinite 
bubbles  poured  out  by  the  great  creative 
power.  All  know  that  we  shall  quickly  sink 
into  the  great  dark  sea  and  the  waves  will 
close  above  us  as  if  we  had  not  been.  And 
yet  we  do  not  really  think  of  the  world  as 
moving  on  the  same  when  we  have  spoken 
our  last  lines  and  retired  behind  the  scenes. 
To  the  world  we  are  little, — to  ourselves  we 
are  all.  We  almost  hope  that  for  a  time  at 

39 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

least  we  shall  be  missed, — that  some  souls 
shall  sorrow  and  some  lives  feel  pain.  We 
hope  that  here  and  there  some  pilgrim  will 
tell  of  a  burden  that  we  helped  him  bear,  or 
a  road  we  tried  to  smooth.  That  sometime 
when  the  merry  feast  is  on,  a  former  friend 
shall  feel  a  momentary  shadow  rest  upon  his 
heart  at  the  thought  of  the  face  he  used  to 
know  and  the  voice  that  now  is  still.  Thus 
Omar  and  FitzGerald  mused  and  hoped  and 
told  in  beautiful,  pathetic  lines : 

Yon  rising  Moon  that  looks  for  us  again — 
How  oft  hereafter  will  she  wax  and  wane ; 

How  oft  hereafter  rising  look  for  us 
Through  this  same  Garden — and  for  one  in  vain ! 

And  when  like  her,  O  Saki,  you  shall  pass 
Among  the  Guests  Star-scatter'd  on  the  Grass, 

And  in  your  blissful  errand  reach  the  spot 
Where  I  made  one — turn  down  an  empty  Glass ! 


40 


WALT 
WHITMAN 


WALT  WHITMAN 

HE  work  of  Whitman  stands 
alone  in  the  literature  of  the 
world.  Both  in  substance 
and  construction  he  ignored 
all  precedents  and  dared  to 
be  himself.  All  the  rules  of 
form  and  taste  must  be  un 
learned  before  the  world  can  accept  his  style 
as  true  literary  art.  Still  it  may  be  that  Walt 
Whitman  was  a  poet,  and  that  sometime  the 
world  will  look  back  and  marvel  at  the  me 
chanical  precision  and  glittering  polish  that 
confines  and  emasculates  for  the  sake  of  a 
purely  artificial  form. 

Measured  by  the  common  rules,  Whit 
man's  work  is  neither  poetry  nor  prose ;  it 
is  remotely  allied  to  the  wild  chanting  of 
the  primitive  bards,  who  looked  about  at 
the  fresh  new  marvels  of  earth  and  sky  and 
sea,  and  unhampered  by  forms  and  rules 
and  customs,  sang  of  the  miracles  of  the 
universe  and  the  mysteries  of  life.  Whit 
man  seems  one  of  those  old  bards,  fresh 
from  the  hand  of  nature,  young  with  the 
first  creation,  the  newest  handwork  of  the 
great  Master,  untaught  in  any  schools,  un 
fettered  by  any  of  the  myriad  chords,  which 
time  is  ever  weaving  about  the  brains  and 

43 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

hearts  and  consciences  of  men  as  the  world 

§rows  gray;  a  primitive  bard  of  nature, 
orn  by  some  chance  or  accident  in  this  old, 
tired,  worn-out  world,  dropped  into  this 
Nineteenth  century  with  its  machines  and 
conventions,  its  artificial  life,  its  unnatural 
morals  and  its  fettered  limbs.  He  alone  in 
all  the  ages  seems  to  have  been  specially 
given  to  the  world,  still  fresh  with  the  im 
print  of  the  Creator's  hand,  and  standing 
amid  all  our  false  conventions,  natural, 
simple,  true,  " naked  and  not  ashamed." 
To  the  world  with  its  crowded  cities,  its  dis 
eased  bodies,  its  unnatural  desires,  its  nar 
row  religion,  and  its  false  morals,  he  comes 
like  a  breeze  of  the  morning,  from  the 
mountains  or  the  sea.  Aye,  like  a  breath  of 
that  great,  creative  life,  which  touched  the 
fresh  world  and  brought  forth  the  green 

§rass,  the  sparkling  waters  and  the  growing, 
eauteous,  natural  earth. 
No  one  ever  fell  in  love  with  Whitman's 
work  for  its  literary  art,  but  his  work  must 
live  or  die  because  of  his  philosophy  of  life 
and   the  material  he  chose  from  which  to 
weave  his  songs.     It  is  in  his  whole  point  of 
view  that  Walt  Whitman  stands  so  much 
alone.     No  one  else  has  ever  looked  on  the 
universe  and  life  as  this  man  did.     If    reli- 

44 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

gion  means  devotion  to  that  great  unseen 
power  that  is  ever  manifest  in  all  of  nature's 
works,  then  Walt  Whitman  was  the  most 
reverent  soul  that  ever  lived.  This  man 
alone  of  all  the  world  dared  defend  the 
Creator  in  every  part  and  parcel  of  his 
work.  The  high  mountains,  the  deep  val 
leys,  the  broad  plains  and  the  wide  seas ;  the 
feelings,  the  desires,  and  the  passions  of 
man ;  all  forms  of  life  and  being  that  exist 
upon  the  earth,  were  to  him  but  several 
manifestations  of  a  great  creative  power  that 
formed  them  all  alike,  made  each  one  need 
ful  to  the  whole,  and  every  portion  sacred 
through  its  Master's  stamp. 

And  I  will  show  that  there  is  no  imperfection  in  the 
present  and  can  be  none  in  the  future, 

And  I  will  show  that  whatever  happens  to  anybody  it 
may  be  turn'd  to  beautiful  results, 

And  I  will  show  that  nothing  can  happen  more  beauti 
ful  than  death. 

And  I  will  thread  a  thread  through  my  poems  that  time 

and  events  are  compact, 
And  that   all   the   things   of   the   universe   are   perfect 

miracles,  each  as  profound  as  any. 
I  will  not  make  poems  with  reference  to  parts. 
But  I  will  make  poems,  songs,  thoughts,  with  reference 

to  ensemble, 
And  I  will  not  sing  with  reference  to  a  day,  but  with 

reference  to  all  days. 

45 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Whitman's  philosophy  knew  no  evil  and 
no  wrong.  The  fact  of  existence  proved 
the  right  of  existence ;  in  the  great  work 
shop  of  nature  every  tool  had  its  special  use 
and  its  rightful  place. 

The  imperfections  of  the  world  come 
from  the  narrow  visions  of  men.  If  the 
perspective  is  right,  the  universe  is  right. 
From  the  narrow  valley  the  house  may  look 
old  and  worn,  the  fences  decayed,  the  fields 
barren,  the  woods  scraggy  and  the  cliff 
ragged  and  bare;  but  climb  to  the  only 
place  where  either  life  or  landscape  can  be 
rightly  seen,  the  mountain  top,  and  look 
once  more.  The  hills,  the  valley,  the 
stream,  the  woods,  and  the  farms  have 
melted  and  blended  into  one  harmonious 
whole,  and  every  imperfection  has  been 
swept  away.  The  universe  is  filled  with 
myriad  worlds  as  important  as  our  own,  each 
one  a  tiny  floating  speck  in  an  endless  sea  of 
space — each  whirling,  turning,  moving  on 
and  on  and  on,  through  the  countless  ages, 
past  and  yet  to  come.  No  one  can  tell  the 
purpose  of  their  tireless,  endless  flight 
through  space ;  but  still  we  know  that  each 
has  an  orbit  of  its  own,  and  every  world  is 
related  to  the  rest,  and  every  grain  of  sand 
and  the  weakest,  feeblest  spark  of  power  has 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

its  needful  place  in  the  balance  of  the  whole. 
So  all  of  good,  and  all  of  bad,  and  all  of  life, 
and  all  of  death,  and  all  of  all,  has  the  right 
to  be  and  must  needs  be.  Walt  Whitman 
did  not  even  know  how  to  divide  the  evil 
from  the  good,  but  he  sang  them  both 
alike. 

I  am  not  the  poet  of  goodness  only,  I  do  not  decline  to 

be  the  poet  of  wickedness  also. 
What  blurt  is  this  about  virtue  and  about  vice  ? 
Evil  propels  me  and  reform  of  evil  propels  me,  I  stand 

indifferent. 

The  universe  can  make  no  mistakes,  every 
particle  of  energy  that  has  permeated  the 
world  since  time  began,  has  been  working 
toward  a  completer  system  and  a  more  har 
monious  whole.  There  is  a  soul  of  truth  in 
error ;  there  is  a  soul  of  good  in  evil.  From 
the  trials  and  sorrows  and  disappointments 
of  life,  even  from  its  bitterness  and  doubt 
and  sin,  are  often  born  the  holiest  desires, 
the  sincerest  endeavors  and  the  most  right 
eous  deeds. 

Sometimes  with  one  I  love  I  fill  myself  with  rage  for 

fear  I  effuse  unreturn'd  love, 
But  now  I  think  there  is  no  unreturn'd  love,  the  pay  is 

certain  one  way  or  another, 
(I  loved  a  certain  person  ardently  and  my  love  was  not 

returned, 
Yet  out  of  that  I  have  written  these  songs.) 

47 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

This  is  the  old,  old  philosophy,  ever  for 
gotten,  yet  ever  present.  It  is  sure  in  the 
world  of  mechanics,  it  is  equally  true  in  the 
world  of  morals  and  of  life.  Nothing  is 
lost ;  the  force  that  once  was  heat  is  trans 
formed  to  light;  the  flood  that  destroyed 
the  grain,  comes  at  last  to  turn  the  miller's 
wheel.  What  we  call  sin  and  evil  make  the 
experiences  of  life  and  go  to  the  upbuilding 
of  character  and  the  development  of  man. 
We  can  know  only  what  we  have  felt,  and 
however  much  we  try  to  deceive  others,  we 
can  tell  only  of  the  experiences  we  ourselves 
have  had.  The  poorest  life  is  the  one  that 
has  no  tale  to  tell.  In  the  doubts  and  dark 
ness  of  life,  in  the  turbulence  of  mind  and 
the  anguish  of  the  soul,  it  is  most  consoling 
to  feel  that  resignation  and  confidence  which 
comes  from  a  realization  that  all  is  right  and 
that  you  are  master  of  yourself  and  at  peace 
with  God  and  man.  This  calm,  optimistic, 
self-reliant  philosophy  is  ever  present  with 
its  consoling  power  in  all  Walt  Whitman's 
work. 

I  have  said  that  the  soul  is  not  more  than  the  body, 
And  I  have  said  that  the  body  is  not  more  than  the  soul, 
And  nothing,  not  God,  is  greater  to  one  than  one's  self 

is, 
And  whoever  walks  a  furlong  without  sympathy  walks 

to  his  own  funeral  drest  in  his  shroud, 

48 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

And  I  or  you  pocketless  of  a  dime  may  purchase  the 

pick  of  the  earth, 
And  to  glance  with  an  eye  or  show  a  bean  in  its   pod 

confounds  the  learning  of  all  times, 
And  there  is  no  object  so  soft  but  it  makes  a  hub  for 

the  wheel'd  universe, 
And  I  say  to  any  man  or  woman,  Let  your  soul  stand 

cool  and  composed  before  a  million   universes. 

And  I  say  to  mankind,  Be  not  curious  about  God, 
For   I   who   am   curious   about   each,    am  not  curious 

about  God, 
(No  array  of  terms  can  say  how  much  I  am  at  peace 

about  God  and  about  death). 

I  hear  and  behold  God  in  every  object,  yet  understand 

God  not  in  the  least, 
Nor  do  I  understand  who  there  can  be  more  wonderful 

than  myself. 

Why  should  I  wish  to  see  God  better  than  this  day  ? 
I  see  something  of  God  each  hour  of  the  twenty-four 

and  each  moment  then, 
In  the  faces  of  men  and  women  I  see  God,  and  in  my 

own  face  in  the  glass, 
I  find  letters  from  God  dropt  in  the  street,  and  every  one 

is  sign'd  by  God's  name, 
And  I  leave  them  where  they  are,  for  I  know  that  where- 

soe'er  I  go, 
Others  will  punctually  come  for  ever  and  ever. 

This  is  not  the  boasting  of  the  ignorant 
egotist  who  vaunts  himself  above  his  fellow 
man,  but  the  calm,  conscious  serenity  of  a 
great  soul,  who  has  learned  the  patient  phi 
losophy  of  life. 

49 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

There  is  an  egotism  that  is  cheap  and  vul 
gar  and  born  of  ignorance  alone.  There  is 
an  egotism  that  comes  from  the  knowledge 
that  after  all  what  we  are  depends  not  upon 
the  estimate  of  the  world,  but  upon  the  in 
tegrity  and  character  of  ourselves.  This 
consciousness  of  individual  worth  brings 
that  peace  of  soul,  "  which  the  world  can 
neither  give  nor  take  away." 

I  know  I  am  august, 

I  do  not  trouble  my  spirit  to  vindicate  itself  or  be  under 
stood, 

I  see  that  the  elementary  laws  never  apologize, 

(I  reckon  I  behave  no  prouder  than  the  level  I  plant  my 
house  by,  after  all), 

I  exist  as  I  am,  that  is  enough, 

If  no  other  in  the  world  be  aware  I  sit  content. 

One  world  is  aware  and  by  far  the  largest  to  me,  and 
that  is  myself; 

And  whether  I  come  to  my  own  to-day  or  in  ten  thou 
sand  or  ten  million  years, 

I  can  cheerfully  take  it  now,  or  with  equal  cheerfulness 
I  can  wait. 

My  foothold  is  tennon'd  and  mortis'd  in  granite, 
I  laugh  at  what  you  call  dissolution, 
And  I  know  the  amplitude  of  time. 

Happy  is  the  man  that  has  climbed  to  the 
height  on  which  Walt  Whitman  stood. 
Happy  is  he  that  has  mastered  the  haste  and 

5° 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

impatience  of  youth,  and  is  content  to  bide 
his  time.  Happy  is  he  that  has  so  far  solved 
the  problem  of  life  as  to  know  that  reward 
is  not  received  from  others  and  cannot  be 
withheld  by  others,  but  can  be  given  only  by 
ourselves.  Such  a  man  has  struck  the  sub 
tle  harmony  which  unites  his  soul  with  the 
universal  life  and  he  knows  that  no  one  but 
himself  can  cut  the  cord. 

To  a  great  mass  of  men  and  women,  Walt 
Whitman  is  known  almost  alone  by  that 
portion  of  his  work  called  "  Children  of 
Adam."  These  poems  have  called  forth  the 
fiercest  opposition  and  the  bitterest  denun 
ciation,  and  if  the  common  judgment  is 
correct,  they  are  obscene  and  vile.  While 
this  portion  of  his  book  is  by  far  the  small 
est  part,  still,  before  the  court  of  public 
opinion,  he  must  stand  or  fall  upon  these 
lines.  In  one  sense  public  opinion  is  right, 
for  unless  these  stanzas  can  be  defended,  his 
point  of  view  is  wrong,  and  Walt  Whitman's 
work  will  die.  We  need  not  accept  all  he 
did,  or  give  unstinted  praise  to  all  his  work, 
but  his  scheme  is  consistent  in  every  portion 
of  his  thought,  and  his  point  of  view  will 
determine  the  place  he  shall  fill  in  art  and 
life. 

It  is  in  this  work  that  the  courage  and  per- 

51 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

sonality  of  Whitman  towers  so  high  above 
every  other  man  that  ever  wrote.  It  is  easy 
for  the  essayist  to  speak  in  general  terms 
and  glittering  phrases  in  defense  of  Whit 
man's  work.  His  defenders  have  been 
many,  but  he  alone  has  had  the  courage  to 
speak. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  insist  that  his  u  A  Wom 
an  Waits  for  Me"  is  a  tremendous  work, 
and  as  pure  as  nature's  generating  power. 
Still  perhaps  few  would  dare  to  read  it  aloud 
in  an  assembly  of  men  and  women.  If 
Whitman  is  right,  the  world  is  wrong.  This 
poem,  and  others  of  its  like,  in  plain  words 
deals  of  the  deepest,  strongest,  most  persist 
ent  feelings  that  move  the  sentient  world. 
In  proportion  as  they  are  deeper  and 
stronger  than  any  other,  they  should  the 
more  be  the  subject  of  thought  and  art. 
And  still  ages  of  established  convention  have 
made  the  world  pretend  ignorance  until  no 
one  dares  defend  his  right  to  life  but  this 
brave  and  simple  man. 

In  both  England  and  America,  narrow  in 
terpretations  of  morality  have  almost  stifled 
art.  As  remarked  by  a  leading  novelist — 
"  All  our  literature  is  addressed  to  the  young 
school  girl."  If  it  will  not  pass  muster  be 
fore  her  eyes,  it  has  no  right  to  live,  and  al- 

52 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

most  no  English  or  American  author  has 
been  great  enough  to  rise  above  these  nar 
row  conventions  and  write  the  natural  and 
true.  The  artists  of  continental  Europe 
have  been  less  fettered  and  have  taken  us 
over  a  broader  range  and  a  wider  field. 
Still  while  these  authors  have  told  more  of 
life,  they  have  treated  these  tremendous 
subjects  by  drawing  the  curtain  only  a  little 
way  aside,  and  giving  us  a  curious,  perverted, 
half  stolen  look,  as  if  they  knew  that  the  pic 
ture  was  unholy  and  therefore  tempting  to 
the  gaze.  But  Walt  Whitman  approached 
the  human  body  and  the  mysteries  of  life 
from  an  entirely  different  view. 

If  anything  is  sacred,  the  human  body  is  sacred, 
And  the  glory  and  sweet  of  man  is  the  token  of  man 
hood  untainted, 

And  in  man  or  woman  a  clean,  strong,  firm-fibred  body, 
is  more  beautiful  than  the  most  beautiful  face. 

If  Walt  Whitman  could  have  drawn  the 
veil  from  the  universe  and  shown  us  the  liv 
ing  God  in  all  his  majesty  and  power,  he 
would  have  approached  his  throne  with  no 
greater  reverence  than  when  he  stripped  the 
human  body  and  pointed  to  its  every  part 
fresh  and  sacred  from  its  Maker's  hand. 

No  true  system  of  life  and  morals  will  ex- 

53 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

ist  until  the  holiest  feelings  and  most  potent 
and  eternal  power  is  openly  recognized  and 
discussed  with  neither  jest  nor  shame. 

Walt  Whitman  was  the  great  bard  of  de 
mocracy  and  equality;  not  simply  the  vul 
gar  democracy  of  political  rights  and  pro 
miscuous  familiarity,  but  the  deep,  broad, 
fundamental  democracy  that  looks  at  all  of 
nature  and  feels  the  unity  and  kinship  that 
makes  the  universe  a  whole. 

To  Walt  Whitman  there  could  be  no 
thought  of  class  or  caste.  Each  one  held 
his  certificate  of  birth  from  the  same  infinite 
power  that,  through  all  the  ages  and  all  the 
false  and  criminal  distinctions  of  man,  has 
yet  decreed  that  all  shall  enter  helpless  and 
naked  through  the  same  gateway  of  birth, 
and  each  alike  must  go  back  to  the  funda 
mental  mother,  shorn  of  every  distinction 
that  man  in  his  vain-glorious  pride  has 
sought  to  make.  Whitman  placed  the 
works  of  nature  above  the  works  of  man. 
He  had  no  faith  in  those  laws  and  institu 
tions  which  the  world  has  ever  made  to  de 
fraud,  and  enslave,  and  deny  the  common 
brotherhood  of  all.  He  believed  that  every 
child  that  came  upon  the  earth  was  legiti 
mate,  and  had  an  equal  right  to  land,  and 
sea,  and  air,  and  all  that  nature  made,  and 
all  that  nature  gave. 

54 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Each  of  us  is  inevitable, 

Each  of  us  limitless — each  of  us  with  his  or  her  right 

upon  the  earth, 

Each  of  us  allow'd  the  eternal  purports  of  the  earth, 
Each  of  us  here  as  divinely  as  any  is  here. 

Let  this  stanza  speak  to  our  conscience 
face  to  face — is  it  true  or  false  ?  Can  any 
but  a  blasphemer  deny  the  divine  right  of 
every  man  upon  the  earth  ?  And  yet  if  this 
simple  stanza  is  true,  every  law  book  should 
be  burned  and  every  court  abolished  and 
natural  justice,  unfettered  and  undenied, 
should  be  enthroned  above  the  forms  and 
conventions  and  laws,  which,  each  and  all, 
deny  the  integrity  of  the  soul  and  the  equal 
rights  of  man. 

Through  all  the  injustice  and  inequality  of 
the  world,  the  vision  of  democracy  has  still 
prevailed  and  ever  must  prevail  as  long  as 
nature  brings  forth  and  takes  back  the  mas 
ter  and  the  slave  alike.  But  the  aspiration 
for  democracy  is  not  always  high  and  noble. 
It  is  easy  to  demand  for  ourselves  the  same 
rights  enjoyed  by  our  fellow  men,  but  Whit 
man's  democracy  was  on  a  higher  plane. 

I  speak  the  pass-word  primeval,  I  give  the  sign  of  de- 

mocracys 
By  God !  I  will  accept  nothing  which  all  cannot  have 

their  counterpart  of  on  the  same  terms. 

55 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

These  lines  breathe  the  spirit  of  true  hu 
manity,  the  spirit  that  will  one  day  remove 
all  barriers  and  restrictions,  and  liberate  the 
high  and  low  alike.  For  nothing  is  truer  in 
life  or  more  inevitable  in  the  economy  of 
nature  than  this  sage  thought : 

Whatever  degrades  another  degrades  me, 

And  whatever  is  done  or  said  returns  at  last  to  me. 

It  is  a  sad  mistake  to  believe  that  injustice 
and  wrong  can  injure  only  the  poor  and  the 
weak.  Every  mean  word  and  narrow 
thought  and  selfish  act  degrades  the  aggres 
sor,  leaves  its  mark  upon  his  soul  and  its 
penalty  in  his  life.  So,  too,  no  good  effort 
is  really  lost,  however  it  may  seem  to  be. 
The  kind  word  may  be  spoken  to  the  deaf, 
the  righteous  effort  be  wrongly  directed,  the 
alms  unworthily  bestowed,  but  the  heart 
that  feels  and  the  soul  that  tries  has  grown 
greater  by  the  act. 

The  song  is  to  the  singer,  and  comes  back  most  to  him, 
The  teaching  is  to  the  teacher,  and  comes  back  most  to 

him, 
The  murder  is  to  the  murderer,  and  comes  back  most  to 

him, 

The  theft  is  to  the  thief,  and  comes  back  most  to  him, 
The  love  is  to  the  lover,  and  comes  back  most  to  him, 
The  gift  is  to  the  giver,  and  comes  back  most  to  him, — 

it  cannot  fail, 

56 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

The  oration  is  to  the  orator,  the  acting  is  to  the  actor 

and  actress,  not  to  the  audience, 
And  no  man  understands  any  greatness  or  goodness  but 

his  own,  or  the  indication  of  his  own. 

Not  alone  in  his  theory  of  personal  equal 
ity  was  Walt  Whitman  a  democrat  in  the 
highest  meaning  of  the  term,  but  he  dis 
trusted  the  ease  and  effeminacy  of  modern 
life ;  he  doubted  and  feared  the  polish  and 
super-sensitiveness  that  precedes  decay ;  he 
had  no  faith  in  hot-house  plants,  in  pampered 
life,  in  luxury  and  repose.  He  believed  in 
rugged,  primeval  nature,  in  the  rocks  and 
hills,  the  rivers  and  the  pines ;  he  loved  the 
dumb  and  patient  brute,  and  believed  in 
stalwart  men  and  strong  women ;  in  sun 
light,  rain  and  air. 

I  am  enamour'd  of  growing  out  of  doors, 

Of  men  that  live  among  cattle  or  taste  of  the  ocean  or 

woods, 
Of  the  builders  and  steerers  of  ships  and  the  wielders 

of  axes  and  mauls,  and  the  drivers  of  horses, 
I  can  eat  and  sleep  with  them  week  in  and  week  out. 
I  think  I  could  turn  and  live  with  animals,  they  are  so 

placid  and  self-contain'd, 
I  stand  and  look  at  them  and  long  and  long. 

They  do  not  sweat  and  whine  about  their  condition, 
They  do  not  lie  awake  in  the  dark  and  weep  for  their 

sins, 
They  do  not  make  me  sick  discussing  their  duty  to  God, 

57 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Not  one  is  dissatisfied,  not  one  is  demented   with  the 

mania  of  owning  things, 
Not  one  kneels  to  another,  nor  to  his  kind  that  lived 

thousands  of  years  ago, 
Not  one  is  respectable  or  unhappy  over  the  whole  earth. 

Walt  Whitman's  work  is  not  of  the  old, 
time-worn  sort.  When  he  speaks  of  love  it 
is  the  love  of  life,  the  love  of  reality,  the 
strong  love  of  men,  the  intense  love  of  wom 
en,  the  honest  love  that  nature  made,  the 
love  that  is;  not  the  unhealthy,  immoral, 
false,  impossible  love  told  in  erotic  prose 
and  more  erotic  verse,  and  given  to  young 
girls  and  boys  as  the  truth,  to  poison  and 
corrupt  with  its  false  and  vicious  views  of 
life. 

But  he  sings  of  the  common  things,  the 
democracy  of  every  day ;  for  it  is  the  small 
affairs  that  make  up  life,  and  its  true  philos 
ophy  is  to  see  the  beauty  and  greatness  and 
relation  of  these  little  things  and  not  to  pine 
for  the  seemingly  momentous  events,  which 
can  rarely  come.  The  Alexanders,  the 
Caesars  and  the  Napoleons  are  scattered 
only  here  and  there  in  the  great  sea  of  hu 
man  existence,  and  yet  every  life  measured 
by  just  standards  may  be  as  great  as  these ; 
and  the  soul  that  is  conscious  of  its  own  in 
tegrity  knows  its  own  worth  regardless  of 
the  world. 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

I  do  not  call  one  greater  and  one  smaller, 

That  which  fills  its  period  and  place  is  equal  to  any. 

Walt  Whitman  felt  the  music  of  the  ham 
mer  and  the  axe  as  he  felt  the  harmony  of 
the  symphonies  of  Beethoven,  and  he  un 
derstood  the  art  of  the  plough-boy  in  the 
field  as  well  as  the  glorious  creations  of 
Millet. 

The  young  mechanic  is  closest  to  me,  he  knows  me  well, 
The  woodman  that  takes  his  axe  and  jug  with  him  shall 

take  me  with  him  all  day, 
The  farm-boy  ploughing  in  the  field  feels  good  at  the 

sound  of  my  voice, 
In  vessels  that  sail  my  words  sail,  I  go  with  fishermen 

and  seamen  and  love  them. 

The  soldier  camp'd  or  upon  the  march  is  mine, 

On  the  night  ere  the  pending  battle  may  seek  me,  and  I 
do  not  fail  them, 

On  that  solemn  night  (it  may  be  their  last)  those  that 
know  me  seek  me, 

My  face  rubs  to  the  hunter's  face  when  he  lies  down 
alone  in  his  blanket, 

The  driver  thinking  of  me  does  not  mind  the  jolt  of  his 
wagon, 

The  young  mother  and  old  mother  comprehend  me, 

The  girl  and  the  wife  rest  the  needle  a  moment  and  for 
get  where  they  are, 

They  and  all  would  resume  what  I  have  told  them. 

Walt  Whitman's  democracy  did  not  end 
with  sex.  Man  is  not  always  a  logical  ani- 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

mal.  Most  of  the  practical  democracy  of 
the  world  has  stopped  with  men,  and  gen 
erally  with  white  men  at  that.  The  politi 
cal  equality  of  woman  has  only  barely  been 
considered;  the  still  more  important  ques 
tion,  her  economic  independence,  is  yet  a 
far-off  dream.  But  Walt  Whitman  knew  no 
limit  to  equality.  With  him  equality  meant 
equality.  It  could  mean  nothing  else. 

I  am  the  poet  of  the  woman  the  same  as  the  man, 
And  I  say  it  is  as  great  to  be  a  woman  as  to  be  a  man, 
And  I  say  there  is  nothing  greater  than  the  mother  of 
men. 

Probably  Walt  Whitman  would  not  have 
raised  his  hat  to  a  woman  on  the  street,  nor 
given  her  his  seat  in  the  car,  simply  because 
she  was  a  woman.  Both  these  may  be  well 
enough,  but  they  grow  from  false  ideas  of 
women  and  of  course  through  these  false 
ideas  women  lose  the  most.  Injustice  and 
oppression  can  never  be  made  up  by  chiv 
alry  and  pretended  courtesy.  And  the  evil 
always  is  and  must  be  the  false  relation  which 
these  create.  Men  expect  to  pay  women 
for  their  political  and  economic  freedom  in 
theater  tickets  and  by  taking  off  their  hats  in 
public,  and  in  the  end  women  become  will 
ing  to  receive  this  paltry  and  debasing  bribe. 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

"The  Open  Road,"  one  of  Whitman's 
master-pieces,  is  full  of  wholesome  inclusive 
democracy. 

Afoot  and  light-hearted  I  take  to  the  open  road, 
Healthy,  free,  the  world  before  me, 
The  long  brown  path  before  me   leading  wherever  I 
choose. 

Henceforth  I  ask  not  good  fortune,  I  myself  am  good 
fortune, 

Henceforth  I  whimper  no  more,  postpone  no  more,  need 
nothing 

Done  with  indoor  complaints,  libraries,  querulous  criti 
cisms, 

Strong  and  content  I  travel  the  open  road. 

The  earth,  that  is  sufficient, 

I  do  not  want  the  constellations  any  nearer, 

I  know  they  are  very  well  where  they  are, 

I  know  they  suffice  for  those  who  belong  to  them. 

Here  the  profound  lessons  of  reception,  nor  preference 
nor  denial, 

The  black  with  his  woolly  head,  the  felon,  the  diseas'd, 
the  illiterate  person,  are  not  denied ; 

The  birth,  the  hasting  after  the  physician,  the  beggar's 
tramp,  the  drunkard's  stagger,  the  laughing  party 
of  mechanics, 

The  escaped  youth,  the  rich  person's  carriage,  the  fop, 
the  eloping  couple, 

The  early  market  men,  the  hearse,  the  moving  of  furni 
ture  into  the  town,  the  return  back  from  the 
town, 

They  pass,  I  also  pass,  anything  passes,  none  can  be  in 
terdicted, 

None  but  are  accepted,  none  but  shall  be  dear  to  me. 

6l 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

But  Walt  Whitman's  democracy  was  more 
inclusive  still.  It  is  almost  becoming  the 
fad  to  forgive  the  evil  in  others  and  to  insist 
that,  after  all,  their  good  qualities  give  them 
the  right  to  kinship  with  ourselves,  but  this 
is  only  one  side  of  true  democracy.  The 
felon  is  my  brother,  not  alone  because  he 
has  every  element  of  good  that  I  so  well 
recognize  in  myself,  but  because  I  have 
every  element  of  evil  that  I  see  in  him. 
Walt  Whitman  was  wise  enough  to  see  the 
feelings  and  passions  that  make  others  sin, 
and  he  was  just  enough  and  great  enough  to 
recognize  ajl  these  feelings  in  himself. 

You  felons  on  trial  in  courts, 

You   convicts  in    prison-cells,  you   sentenced   assassins 

chain'd  and  handcuff'd  with  iron, 
Who  am  I  too  that  I  am  not  on  trial  or  in  prison  ? 
Me,  ruthless  and  devilish  as  any,  that  my  wrists  are  not 

chain'd  with  iron,  or  my  ankles  with  iron  ? 

You  prostitutes  flaunting  over  the  pavements  or  obscene 
in  your  rooms, 

Who  am  I  that  I  should  call  you  more  obscene  than  my 
self? 

0  culpable !  I  acknowledge — I  expose  ! 

(O  admirers,  praise  not  me — compliment  not  me — you 
make  me  wince, 

1  see  what  you  do  not — I  know  what  you  do  not.) 
Inside  these  breast-bones  I  lie  smutch'd  and  choked, 
Beneath  this  face  that  appears  so  impassive  hell's   tides 

continually  run, 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Lusts  and  wickedness  are  acceptable  to  me, 

I  walk  with  delinquents  with  passionate  love, 

I  feel  I  am  of  them — I  belong  to  those  convicts   and 

prostitutes  myself, 
And  henceforth  I  will  not  deny  them — for  how  can  I 

deny  myself  ? 

These  lines  are  not  a  burst  of  poetic  feel 
ing,  they  are  the  sincere  utterances  of  a 
brave  philosopher  and  poet,  who  tells  the 
truth  about  himself  and  about  you  and  me. 
Let  us  be  honest  about  sin.  How  do  you 
and  I  differ  from  the  murderer  on  the  gal 
lows,  the  prostitute  in  the  street  or  the  bur 
glar  in  the  jail?  How  wide  a  breach  is 
there  between  coveting  the  house  or  home 
or  seal  skin  coat  of  your  neighbor  and  tak 
ing  it  if  you  can?  How  great  a  difference 
between  making  a  sharp  trade  with  your 
neighbor,  getting  more  from  him  than  you 
give  to  him,  and  taking  outright  what  he 
has  ?  Yet  one  is  business,  the  other  larceny. 
What  is  the  distance  between  hating  your 
neighbor,  and  wishing  him  dead :  how  great 
a  chasm  between  feeling  relief  at  his  death, 
and  killing  him  yourself?  So  far  as  the  man 
is  concerned,  it  is  not  the  act  that  is  evil, 
but  the  heart  that  is  evil.  There  is  no  dif 
ference  between  the  committed  and  the  un 
committed  crime.  Every  feeling  that  makes 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

every  sort  of  crime  is  in  the  heart  of  each 
and  every  one.  Nature  has  made  the  blood 
of  some  of  us  a  little  cooler,  and  has  de 
veloped  caution  a  little  more,  or  fate  has 
made  the  temptation  a  trifle  less,  and  thus  we 
have  escaped, — that  is,  managed  to  conceal 
the  real  passion  that  boils  and  surges  in  our 
hearts.  Until  this  is  dead,  evil  is  in  our 
souls.  Away  with  all  this  talk  of  superiority 
and  differences.  It  is  cant — pure,  simple 
cant. 

I  will  play  a  part  no  longer,  why  should  I  exile  myself 
from  my  companions  ? 

0  you  shunn'd  persons,  I  at  least  do  not  shun  you, 

1  come  forthwith  in  your  midst,  I  will  be  your  poet, 
I  will  be  more  to  you  than  to  any  of  the  rest. 

Has  man  the  right  to  be  less  kind  than  na 
ture  is?  Have  we  the  right  by  word  or  deed 
to  pass  judgment  on  our  fellow  man  ?  Can 
we  not  learn  of  love  and  charity  and  hope 
from  the  sun,  the  rain,  the  generous  earth, 
and  the  pulsing,  growing  spring?  Hear 
Walt  Whitman's  word  to  a  common  prosti 
tute: 

Be  composed — be  at  ease  with  me — I  am  Walt  Whit 
man,  liberal  and  lusty  as  Nature, 
Not  till  the  sun  excludes  you  do  I  exclude  you, 
Not  till  the  waters  refuse  to  glisten  for  you  and  the 
leaves  to  rustle  for  you  do  my  words  refuse  to 
glisten  and  rustle  for  you. 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Neither  was  it  the  magnanimous  soul  of 
Whitman  that  was  charitable  and  kind,  but 
it  was  the  truthful,  honest  man  who  saw  his 
own  goodness  in  the  woman;  and  her  sin, 
which  after  all  was  only  an  excess  of  kind 
ness,  in  himself. 

The  regenerated  world  will  be  built  upon 
the  democracy  Walt  Whitman  taught.  It 
will  know  neither  rich  nor  poor;  neither 
high  nor  low ;  neither  good  nor  bad ;  neither 
right  nor  wrong ;  but 

I  will  establish  *  *  *  in  every  city  of  these  states  inland 

and  seaboard, 
In  the  fields  and  woods,  and  above  every  keel,  little  or 

large, that  dents  the  water, 

Without  edifices  or  rules  or  trustees  or  any  argument, 
The  institution  of  the  dear  love  of  comrades. 

Walt  Whitman  was  always  and  at  all  times 
an  optimist.  He  never  struck  a  despairing 
note  or  voiced  a  doubting  strain.  His  hope 
was  not  anchored  in  blind  faith  or  narrow 
creed.  His  optimism  was  not  that  of  the 
cowardly  fanatic  who  stubbornly  shuts  his 
eyes  to  avoid  an  unpleasant  view.  He  looked 
abroad  at  all  the  world  and  called  it  good. 

Optimism  and  pessimism  in  their  last  an 
alysis  are  questions  of  temperament.  They 
depend  upon  the  eye  that  looks  out,  not 
upon  the  object  that  it  sees.  The  pessimist 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 


points  to  the  sunset,  casting  its 
shadows  on  the  earth,  and  tells  of  the  night 
that  is  coming  on  ;  the  optimist  shows  us  the 
rosy  dawn,  the  golden  promise  of  a  glorious 
day.  The  pessimist  tells  of  winter,  whose 
icy  breath  chills  and  deadens  all  the  world; 
the  optimist  points  to  springtime  with  its 
ever  recurring  miracle  of  light  and  life.  Is 
the  pessimist  right  or  is  the  optimist  right — 
does  the  night  precede  the  day,  or  the  day 
precede  the  night?  After  all,  are  our  cal 
endars  wrong — does  the  winter  with  its 
white  shroud  and  cold  face  mark  the  ending 
of  the  year,  or  does  the  springtime  with  its 
budding  life  and  its  resurrecting  power 
awaken  the  dead  earth  to  joyous,  pulsing 
life  again  ? 

Above  the  view  of  the  optimist,  who  sees 
the  morning  and  the  spring,  and  the  pessi 
mist,  who  sees  the  evening  and  the  closing 
year,  stand  a  few  serene  souls,  who  look  on 
both  with  clear  eye  and  tranquil  mind,  and 
declare  that  all  is  good.  The  morning  is 
right  and  the  evening  is  right.  It  is  beauti 
ful  to  pass  through  the  joyous  gates  of  birth  ; 
it  is  good  to  be  clasped  in  the  peaceful  arms 
of  death.  Rare  Walt  Whitman  at  thirty- 
seven,  full  of  health  and  vigor  and  strength, 
with  the  world  before  him,  and  conscious  of 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

his  genius  and  his  power,  sings  in  a  burst  of 
optimism : 

I  celebrate  myself,  and  sing  myself, 

And  what  I  assume  you  shall  assume, 

For  every  atom  belonging  to  me  as  good  belongs  to  you. 

I  loafe  and  invite  my  soul, 

I  lean  and  loafe  at  my  ease,  observing  a  spear  of  summer 
grass. 

My  tongue,  every  atom  of  my  blood,  form'd  from  this 

soil,  this  air, 
Born  of  parents  born  here  from  parents  the  same,  and 

their  parents  the  same, 

I,  now  thirty-seven  years  old  in  perfect  health  begin, 
Hoping  to  cease  not  till  death. 

Again  at  seventy,  looking  back  on  a  life 
well  spent,  conscious  that  the  last  few  sands 
are  running  out,  a  confirmed  invalid  with 
palsied  limbs  and  failing  strength,  looking 
death  squarely  in  the  face  and  just  before 
him ;  with  the  same  sweet  smile,  the  same 
lovely  nature,  the  same  all-embracing  phi- 
losophy,sings  once  again  his  optimistic  song  : 

Not  from  successful  love  alone, 

Nor  wealth,  nor  honor'd  middle  age,   nor  victories  of 

politics  or  war  ; 

But  as  life  wanes,  and  all  the  turbulent  passions  calm, 
As  gorgeous,  vapory,  silent  hues  cover  the  evening  sky, 
As  softness,  fulness,  rest,  suffuse  the  frame,  like  fresher, 

balmier  air, 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

As  the  days  take  on  a  mellower  light,  and  the  apple  at 
last  hangs  really  finish'd  and  indolent-ripe  on  the 
tree, 

Then  for  the  teeming,  quietest,  happiest  days  of  all ! 

The  brooding,  blissful  halcyon  days! 

It  must  be  that  somewhere  is  a  serene 
height  where  life  triumphs  over  death.  It 
must  be  that  nature  does  not  jar,  and  that 
the  close  of  a  lovely  life  is  really  as  peaceful 
and  as  beautiful  as  the  decline  of  a  perfect 
day ;  that  each  day  rightly  lived  and  every 
year  well  spent,  must  bring  the  pilgrim  more 
in  harmony  with  his  journey  drawing  to  a 
close. 

The  world  has  ever  shuddered  at  death — 
has  stubbornly  closed  its  eyes  and  refused  to 
look  at  the  great  fact  that  nature  places  all 
about  our  path ;  has  never  tried  to  look  in 
its  face,  to  take  its  hand,  to  think  of  its  peace 
ful,  forgiving,  soothing  touch ;  has  ever 
called  it  enemy  and  never  thought  to  caress 
it  as  a  friencl.  Walt  Whitman  was  wiser 
than  the  rest.  His  philosophy  made  him 
know  that  death  was  equally  good,  whether 
the  opening  gateway  to  a  freer,  fuller  life,  or 
a  restful  couch  for  a  weary  soul. 

Whitman  had  solved  the  eternal  riddle ; 
he  had  conquered  death ;  he  looked  at  her 
pale  form  and  saluted  her  as  he  would  wel- 

68 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

come  a  new  birth.  No  bard  ever  sang  a 
more  glorious  hymn  than  Walt  Whitman 
sang  to  death. 

Come,  lovely  and  soothing  Death, 

Undulate  round  the  world,  serenely  arriving,  arriving, 

In  the  day,  in  the  night,  to  all,  to  each, 

Sooner  or  later,  delicate  Death, 

Praised  be  the  fathomless  universe 

For  life  and  joy,  and  for  objects  and  knowledge  curious, 

And  for  love,  sweet  love — but  praise !  praise  !  praise 

For  the  sure  enwinding  arms  of  cool,  enfolding  Death. 

Dark  Mother,  always  gliding  near  with  soft  feet, 

Have  none  chanted  for  thee  a  chant  of  fullest  welcome  ? 

Then  I  chant  for  thee,  I  glorify  thee  above  all, 

I  bring  thee  a  song  that  when  thou  must  indeed  come, 
come  unfalteringly, 

Approach,  strong  deliveress, 

When  it  is  so,  when  thou  hast  taken  them 

I  joyously  sing  the  dead, 

Lost  in  the  loving,  floating  ocean  of  thee, 

Laved  in  the  flood  of  thy  bliss,  O  Death. 

From  me  to  thee  glad  serenades, 

Dances  for  thee  I  propose,  saluting  thee,  adornments  and 
feastings  for  thee, 

And  the  sights  of  the  open  landscape  and  the  high- 
spread  sky  are  fitting, 

And  life  and  the  fields,  and  the  huge  and  thoughtful 
night, 

The  night  in  silence  under  many  a  star, 

The  ocean  shore  and  the  husky  whispering  wave  whose 
voice  I  know, 

And  the  soul  turning  to  thee,  O  vast  and  well  veil'd 
Death, 

And  the  body  gratefully  nestling  close  to  thee, 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Over  the  tree  tops  I  float  thee  a  song, 

Over  the  rising  and  sinking  waves,  over  the  myriad  fields 

and  the  prairies  wide, 
Over   the   dense-packed    cities    all,    and    the    teeming 

wharves,  and  ways, 
I  float  this  carol  with  joy,  with  joy  to  thee,  O  Death. 

Whitman  in  his  wheel  chair,  physically 
shattered  and  broken,  but  with  a  mind 
strong  and  serene,  and  at  peace  with  all  the 
world,  waiting  for  the  sun  to  set,  is  a  lesson 
in  optimism  better  than  all  the  sermons  ever 
preached.  Without  faith  in  any  form  of  re 
ligion  that  the  world  has  ever  known,  he 
had  brought  his  life  so  in  harmony  with  na 
ture  that  he  felt  every  beat  of  the  great, 
universal  heart,  and  with  the  confidence  of 
certain  knowledge  he  looked  upon  the  fad 
ing  earth  and  caroled  a  song  as  he  sailed 
forth  on  that  great  unknown  sea,  which  is 
hidden  in  perpetual  night,  from  all  but  the 
few  great  souls,  whose  wisdom  and  insight 
have  given  them  the  confidence  and  trust  of 
a  little  child. 

Joy,  shipmates,  joy ! 
(Pleas'd  to  my  soul  at  death  I  cry,) 
Our  life  is  closed,  our  life  begins, 
The  long,  long  anchorage  we  leave, 
The  ship  is  clear  at  last,  she  leaps ! 
She  swiftly  courses  from  the  shore, 
Joy,  shipmates,  joy. 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Conscious  of  the  integrity  of  his  purpose, 
and  the  inherent  righteousness  of  his  life, 
moved  and  upheld  by  his  broad  philosophy 
and  his  patient,  trustful  soul,  with  no  false 
modesty  and  with  the  same  manly  egoism 
that  made  him  what  he  was — the  kindest, 
gentlest,  justest,  broadest,  manliest  man — 
Walt  Whitman  asked  the  reward  his  life  had 
earned. 

Give  me  the  pay  I  have  served  for, 

Give  me  to  sing  the  song  of  the  great  Idea,  take  all  the 

rest, 
I  have  loved  the  earth,  sun,  animals,  I  have  despised 

riches, 
I  have  given  alms  to  every  one  that  ask'd,  stood  up  for 

the  stupid  and  crazy,   devoted  my   income  and 

labor  to  others, 
Hated  tyrants,  argued  not  concerning  God,  had  patience 

and  indulgence  toward  people,  taken  off  my  hat 

to  nothing  known  or  unknown, 
Gone  freely  with  powerful  uneducated  persons  and  with 

the  young,  and  with  the  mothers  of  families, 
Read  these  leaves  to  myself  in  the  open  air,  tried  them 

by  trees,  stars,  rivers, 
Dismiss'd  whatever  insulted  my  own  soul  or  defiled  my 

body, 
Claim'd  nothing  to  myself  which  I  have  not  carefully 

claim'd  for  others  on  the  same  terms, 
Sped  to  the  camps,  and  comrades  found  and  accepted 

from  every  State, 
(Upon  this  breast  has  many  a  dying  soldier  lean'd  to 

breathe  his  last, 

7' 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

This  arm,  this  hand,  this  voice,  have  nourish'd,  rais'd, 

restor'd, 

To  life  recalling  many  a  prostrate  form;) 
I  am  willing  to  wait  to  be  understood  by  the  growth  of 

the  taste  of  myself, 
Rejecting  none,  permitting  all. 

When  man  has  grown  simpler  and  saner 
and  truer — when  the  fever  of  civilization  has 
been  subdued  and  the  pestilence  been 
cured;  when  man  shall  no  longer  deny  and 
revile  the  universal  mother  wno  gave  him 
birth,  then  Walt  Whitman's  day  will  come. 
In  the  clear  light  of  that  regenerated  time, 
when  the  world  looks  back  to  the  doubt  and 
mist  and  confusion  of  to-day,  Walt  Whitman 
will  stand  alone,  the  greatest,  truest,  noblest 
prophet  of  the  age,  a  man  untainted  by  ar 
tificial  life  and  unmoved  by  the  false  stand 
ards  of  his  time.  In  a  sodden,  commercial, 
money-getting  age,  he  enjoyed  all  the  beauty 
of  the  earth  without  the  vulgar  lust  to  own. 
In  a  world  of  privilege  and  caste,  he  felt  and 
taught  the  brotherhood  of  man  and  the  kin 
ship  of  all  living  things.  In  an  age  of  false 
modesty  and  perverted  thought,  he  sang  the 
sanctity  of  the  body  with  the  divinity  of  the 
soul.  Against  the  agnostic  and  the  Christian 
too,  he  defended  every  part  and  portion  of 
the  faultless  work  of  the  creative  power. 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Above  the  doleful,  doubting  voice  of  men, 
through  the  dreariest  day  and  darkest  night, 
in  the  raging  of  the  storm  and  the  madness 
of  the  waves,  his  strong,  optimistic,  reassur 
ing  note  was  ever  heard  above  the  rest,  pro 
claiming  to  the  universe  that  all  is  well.  He 
saw  that  in  a  wise  economy  and  a  great 
broad  way,  that  the  false  was  true,  the  evil 
good,  the  wrong  was  right,  and  that  over  all 
the  universe,  pervading  all  its  teeming  life, 
a  power  omnipotent,  beneficent  and  wise, 
was  working  to  uplift,  conserve  and  purify 
the  whole.  The  poor,  the  weak,  the  suffer 
ing,  the  outcast,  the  felon,  all  knew  him  for 
their  comrade  and  their  friend.  His  great, 
inclusive,  universal  heart  left  no  soul  outside, 
but  all  alike  he  knew,  the  life  of  all  he  felt, 
and  one  and  all  he  loved.  In  his  vocabu 
lary  were  no  words  of  bitterness  and  hate, 
and  in  his  philosophy  no  right  to  censure  or 
to  blame.  In  his  every  deed  and  thought 
he  seemed  to  say: 

"So  I  be  written  in  the  book  of  love, 
I  have  no  care  about  that  book  above, 
Erase  my  name,  or  write  it  as  you  please, 
So  I  be  written  in  the  book  of  love." 

As  the  shadows  lengthen  and  the  daylight 
wanes — as  the  hair  whitens  and  the  passions 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

cool,  more  and  more  do  we  learn  that  love 
is  the  true  philosophy  of  life;  more  and  more 
do  we  revise  the  sterner  judgments  of  our 
earlier  years;  more  and  more  do  we  see 
that  pity  should  take  the  place  of  blame, 
forgiveness  of  punishment,  charity  of 
justice,  and  hatred  be  replaced  by  love. 
When  old  familiar  faces  awake  the  memo 
ries  of  bygone  days,  often  and  often  again 
do  we  fear  that  our  judgments  were  cruel 
and  unjust,  but  every  deed  of  mercy  and 
every  act  of  charity  and  every  thought  of 
pity  is  like  the  balm  of  Gilead  to  our  souls. 
We  may  none  of  us  be  wise  or  great,  fortune 
may  elude  us  and  fame  may  never  come ; 
but  however  poor  or  weak  or  humble,  we 
yet  may  inscribe  our  names  in  the  fairest, 
brightest  book, — the  book  of  love,  and  on 
its  sacred  pages,  earned  by  the  glorious 
truths  he  taught,  by  his  infinite,eyer  present 
love  of  all,  upon  the  foremost  line  will  be 
inscribed  Walt  Whitman's  name. 


74 


ROBERT  •  BURNS 


ROBERT    BURNS. 

T  is  difficult  to  account  for  a 
genius  like  Robert  Burns. 
His  life  and  work  seem  to 
defy  the  laws  of  heredity  and 
environment  alike.  The 
beasts  of  the  field  were 
scarcely  bound  closer  to  the 
soil  than  were  the  ancestors  from  which  he 
sprang;  and  from  his  early  infancy  he  was 
forced  to  follow  the  stony  path  his  father 
trod  before.  As  a  mere  child,  he  learned 
how  hard  it  is  to  sustain  life  in  the  face  of  an 
unfriendly  nature  and  a  cruel,  bitter  world. 
He  was  early  bred  to  toil ;  not  the  work  that 
gives  strength  and  health,  but  the  hard,  con 
stant,  manual  labor  that  degrades  and  em 
bitters,  deforms  and  twists  and  stunts  the 
body  and  the  soul  alike.  Burns  was  denied 
even  the  brief  years  of  childhood — those  few, 
short  years  upon  which  most  of  us  look  back 
from  our  disappointments  and  cares  as  the 
one  bright  spot  in  a  gray  and  level  plain. 

It  is  not  alone  by  the  works  he  has  left  us 
that  Robert  Burns  is  to  be  truly  judged. 
Fortune  endowed  him  with  a  wondrous  brain 
and  a  still  rarer  and  greater  gift — a  tender, 
loving,  universal  heart ;  but  as  if  she  grudged 
him  these  and  sought  to  destroy  or  stunt 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

their  power,  she  cast  his  lot  in  a  social  and 
religious  environment  as  hard  and  forbid 
ding  as  the  cold  and  sterile  soil  of  his  native 
land ;  and  from  these  surroundings  alone  he 
was  obliged  to  draw  the  warmth  and  color 
and  sunshine  that  should  have  come  from 
loving  hearts,  generous  bounties,  and  bright, 
blue  southern  skies.  In  measuring  the  pow 
er  and  character  of  Robert  Burns,  we  must 
remember  the  hard  and  cruel  conditions  of 
his  life,  and  judge  of  his  great  achievements 
in  the  light  of  these. 

The  ways  of  destiny  have  ever  been  be 
yond  the  ken  of  man  ;  now  and  then,  at  rare, 
long  intevals,  she  descends  upon  the  earth, 
and  in  her  arms  she  bears  disguised  a  pre 
cious  gift,  which  she  lavished  upon  a  blind, 
unwilling  world.  She  passes  by  the  gor 
geous  palaces  and  beautiful  abodes  of  men, 
and  drops  the  treasure  in  a  manger  or  a  hut ; 
she  comes  again  to  take  it  back  from  a  world 
that  knew  it  not  and  cast  it  out;  and  again, 
she  seeks  it  not  among  the  strong  and  great, 
but  in  the  hovel  of  the  poor,  the  prison  pen, 
or  perhaps  upon  the  scaffold  or  the  block. 

Measured  by  the  standards  of  our  day  and 
generation,  the  life  of  Robert  Burns  was  a 
failure  and  mistake.  He  went  back  to  the 
great  common  Mother  as  naked  of  all  the 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

gilded  trappings  and  baubles,  which  men 
call  wealth,  as  when  she  first  placed  the 
struggling  infant  on  its  mother's  breast. 

Robert  Burns  was  not  a  "  business  man  "; 
he  was  not  one  of  Dumfries'  "  first  citizens" 
— in  the  measure  of  that  day  and  this ;  he 
was  one  of  its  last  if  not  its  worst.  He  had 
no  stock  in  a  corporation  and  no  interst  in  a 
syndicate  or  trust.  He  had  neither  a  bank 
nor  bank  account.  He  never  endowed  a 
library,  a  museum,  or  a  university.  He  was 
a  singer  of  songs, — a  dreamer  of  dreams.  He 
was  poor,  improvident,  intemperate,  and  ac 
cording  to  the  Scottish  creed,  immoral  and 
irreligious.  In  spite  of  his  great  intellect  he 
was  doubted,  neglected  and  despised.  He 
died  in  destitution  and  despair;  but  the  great 
light  of  his  genius,  which  his  neighbors  could 
not  see  or  comprehend,  has  grown  brighter 
and  clearer  as  the  years  have  rolled  away.  A 
beautiful  mausoleum  now  holds  his  once 
neglected  ashes;  monuments  have  been  rear 
ed  to  his  memory  wherever  worth  is  known 
and  fame  preserved;  while  millions  of  men 
and  women,  the  greatest  and  the  humblest 
of  the  world  alike,  have  felt  their  own  heart 
strings  moved  and  stirred  in  unison  with  the 
music  of  this  immortal  bard,  whose  song  was 
the  breath  of  Nature, — the  sweetest,  tender- 

79 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

est  melody  that  ever  came  from  that  rarest 
instrument — the  devoted  poet's  soul. 

The  great  masterpieces  of  his  genius  were 
not  created  in  the  pleasant  study  of  a  home 
of  refinement, luxury,and  ease, but  were  born 
in  the  fields,  the  farm  yard,  the  stable;  while 
the  "  monarch  peasant "  was  bending  above 
the  humblest  tasks  that  men  pursue  for 
bread.  Only  the  most  ordinary  education 
was  within  the  reach  of  this  child  of  toil, 
and  the  world's  great  storehouses  of  learn 
ing,  literature,  and  art  were  sealed  forever 
from  his  sight;  and  yet,  with  only  the  rude 
peasants,  with  whom  his  life  was  spent,  the 
narrow  setting  of  bleak  fields  and  grey  hills, 
which  was  the  small  stage  on  which  he 
moved,  and  the  sterile  Scotch  dialect  with 
which  to  paint,  he  stirred  the  hearts  of  men 
with  the  sweetest,  highest,  purest  melody 
that  has  ever  moved  the  human  soul. 

Olive  Schreiner  tells  of  an  artist  whose 
pictures  shone  with  the  richest,  brightest 
glow.  His  admirers  gazed  upon  the  canvas 
and  wondered  where  he  found  the  colors — 
so  much  rarer  than  any  they  had  ever  seen 
before.  Other  artists  searched  the  earth, 
but  could  find  no  tints  like  his;  he  died  with 
the  secret  in  his  breast.  And  when  they  un 
dressed  him  to  put  his  grave-clothes  on, 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

they  found  an  old  wound,  hard  and  jagged 
above  his  heart;  and  still  they  wondered 
where  he  found  the  coloring  for  his  work. 
Robert  Burns,  perhaps  more  than  any  other 
man  who  ever  lived,  taught  the  great  truth 
that  poets  are  not  made  but  born;  that  the 
richest  literature,  the  brightest  gems  of  art, 
even  the  most  pleasing  earthly  prospects  are 
less  than  one  spark  of  the  divine  fire,  which 
alone  can  kindle  the  true  light.  Robert 
Burns  like  all  great  artists,  taught  the  world 
that  the  beauty  of  the  landscape,  and  the 
grandeur  and  pathos  of  life  depend,  not 
upon  the  external  objects  that  nature  has 
chanced  to  place  before  pur  view,  but  upon 
the  soul  of  the  artist,  which  alone  can  really 
see  and  interpret  the  manifold  works  of  the 
great  author,  beside  which  all  human  effort 
is  so  poor  and  weak. 

Millet  looked  at  the  French  peasants 
standing  in  their  wooden  shoes,  digging 
potatoes  from  the  earth  and  pausing  to  bow 
reverently  at  the  sounding  of  the  Angelus, 
and  saw  in  this  simple  life,  so  close  to  Na 
ture's  heart,  more  beauty  and  pathos  and 
poetry  than  all  the  glittering  courts  of 
Europe  could  produce.  And  Robert  Burns, 
whose  broad  mind  and  sympathetic  soul 
made  him  kin  to  all  living  things,  had  no 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

need  to  see  the  splendor  and  gaiety  of  wealth 
and  power,  to  visit  foreign  shores  and  un 
known  lands;  but  the  flowers,  the  heather, 
the  daisies,  the  bleak  fields,  the  pelting 
rains,  the  singing  birds,  the  lowing  cattle, 
and  above  all,  the  simple  country  folk  seen 
through  his  eyes,  and  felt  by  his  soul,  and 
held  in  his  all-embracing  heart,  were  cov 
ered  with  a  beauty  and  a  glory  that  all  the 
artificial  world  could  not  create,  and  that  his 
genius  has  endowed  with  immortal  life. 
Robert  Burns  did  not  borrow  his  philosophy 
from  the  books,  his  humanity  from  the 
church,  or  his  poetry  from  the  schools. 
Luckily  for  us  he  escaped  all  these,  and  un 
fettered  and  untaught,  went  straight  to  the 
soul  of  Nature  to  learn  from  the  great 
source,  the  harmony  and  beauty  and  unity 
that  pervades  the  whole ;  and  he  painted 
these  with  colors  drawn  from  his  great  hu 
man  heart.  His  universal  sympathy  gave 
him  an  insight  into  life  that  students  of  sci 
ence  and  philosophy  can  never  reach.  Con 
templating  Nature,  and  seeing  her  generous 
bounties  lavished  alike  on  all  her  children, 
he  could  not  but  contrast  this  with  the  sel 
fishness  and  inhumanity  of  man,  which 
crushes  out  the  weak  and  helpless  and  builds 
up  the  great  and  strong.  Burns  was  a  natu- 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

ral  leveler,  and  while  men  still  believed  in 
the  "  divine  right  of  kings, "  he  preached 
that  "man  was  the  divine  King  of  rights. " 
None  knew  better  than  he  the  injustice  of 
the  social  life  in  which  he  lived,  and  in 
which  we  live  to-day.  Burns  knew,  as  all 
men  of  intelligence  understand,  that  worldly 
goods  are  not,  and  never  have  been  given 
as  a  reward  of  either  brains  or  merit. 

It's  hardly  in  a  body's  power 

To  keep  at  times,  frae  being  sour, 

To  see  how  things  are  shared; 
How  best  o'chiels  are  whiles  in  want 
While  coofs  on  countless  thousands  rant 

And  ken  na  how  to  wair't. 

The  immortal  singer  of  songs,  and  all  his 
descendants,  received  infinitely  less  for  all 
the  works  of  his  genius  than  an  ordinary 
gambler  often  gets  for  one  sale  of  something 
that  he  never  owned,  or  one  purchase  of 
something  that  he  never  bought;  and  it  is 
doubtful  if  all  the  masterpieces  of  the  world 
in  art,  in  literature,  and  in  science,  ever 
brought  as  much  cash  to  those  whose  great, 
patient  brains  have  carefully  and  honestly 
wrought  that  the  earth  might  be  richer  and 
better  and  brighter,  as  has  been  often 
"made"  by  one  inferior  speculator  upon  a 
single  issue  of  watered  stock. 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Living  in  the  midst  of  aristocracy  and 
privilege  and  caste,  Burns  was  a  democrat 
that  believed  in  the  equality  of  man.  It  re 
quired  no  books  or  professors,  or  theories  to 
teach  him  the  injustice  of  the  social  condi 
tions  under  which  the  world  has  ever  lived. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  he  looked  to  the  heart — 
a  teacher  infinitely  more  honest  and  reliable 
than  the  brain. 

If  I'm  design'd  yon  lordling's  slave, 

By  Nature's  law  design'd; 
Why  was  an  independent  wish 

E'er  planted  in  my  mind  ? 

If  not,  why  am  I  subject  to 

His  cruelty,  or  scorn  ? 
Or  why  has  man  the  will  and  pow'r 

To  make  his  fellow  mourn  ? 

Preachers  and  authors  and  teachers,  judges 
and  professors  and  lawyers,  have  been  em 
ployed  for  ages  to  teach  the  justice  of 
slavery  and  the  folly  and  crime  of  equal 
rights ;  but  through  all  quibbles  and  evas 
ions,  this  question  of  Burns,  straight  from 
the  heart,  as  well  as  the  head,  shows  that  all 
these  excuses  are  but  snares  and  cheats. 
The  voice  of  the  French  Revolution  could 
not  fail  to  move  a  soul  like  that  of  Robert 
Burns.  This  great  struggle  for  human  lib 
erty  came  upon  the  world  with  almost  the 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

suddenness  of  an  earthquake,  and  with 
much  of  its  terrors,  too.  Here  the  poor  and 
the  oppressed  felt  the  first  substantial  hope 
for  freedom  that  had  pierced  the  long,  dark 
centuries  since  history  told  the  acts  of  men. 
To  the  oppressors  and  the  powerful,  who 
hated  liberty  then  as  they  ever  have,  before 
and  since,  it  was  a  wild,  dread  threat  of  de 
struction  and  ruin  to  their  precious  "  rights. M 
When  the  struggle  commenced,  Burns  was 
enjoying  the  munificent  salary  of  Fifty 
pounds  a  year  as  a  whisky  gauger  in  the  vil 
lage  of  Dumfries.  He  had  already  spent  a 
winter  in  Edinburgh,  and  had  been  feted 
and  dined  by  the  aristocracy  and  culture  of 
Scotland's  capital  without  losing  his  head, 
although  at  no  small  risk.  An  acquaintance 
and  entertainer  of  the  nobility  and  an  in 
cumbent  of  a  lucrative  office,  there  was  but 
one  thing  for  Burns  to  do ;  this  was  to  con 
demn  the  Revolution  and  lend  his  trench 
ant  pen  to  the  oppressor's  cause ;  but  this 
course  he  flatly  refused  to  take.  He  openly 
espoused  the  side  of  the  people,  and  wrote 
the  "Tree  of  Liberty/'  one  of  his  most 
stirring  songs,  in  its  defense. 

Upon  this  tree  there  grows  sic  fruit, 

Its  virtues  a'can  tell  man; 
It  raises  man  aboon  the  brute, 

85 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

It  mak's  him  ken  himseP  man. 
Gif  ance  the  peasant  taste  a  bit, 
He's  greater  than  a  lord  man. 

King  Louis  thought  to  cut  it  down 

When  it  was  unco  sma'  man; 
For  this  the  watchman  cracked  his  crown, 

Cut  aff  his  head  an'  a'  man. 

Even  these  words  are  not  strong  enough 
to  express  his  love  for  natural  liberty  and  his 
distrust  of  those  forms  and  institutions  which 
over  and  over  again  have  crushed  the  price 
less  gem  they  pretend  to  protect. 

A  fig  for  those  by  law  protected ! 

Liberty's  a  glorious  feast ! 
Courts  for  cowards  were  erected, 

Churches  built  to  please  the  priest. 

Even  higher  and  broader  was  Burns'  view 
of  equality  and  right.  He  stood  on  a  serene 
height,  where  he  looked  upon  all  the  strife 
and  contention  of  individuals  and  states, 
and  dreamed  of  a  perfect  harmony  and  uni 
versal  order,  where  men  and  Nations  alike 
should  be  at  peace,  and  the  world  united  in 
one  grand  common  brotherhood,  where  the 
fondest  wish  of  each  should  be  the  highest 
good  of  all.  These  beautiful,  prophetic 
lines  seem  to  speak  of  a  day  as  distant  now 
as  when  Burns  wrote  them  down  a  hundred 

86 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

years  ago.  But  still,  all  men  that  love  the 
human  race  will  ever  hope,  and  work,  and 
say  with  him : 

Then  let  us  pray  that  come  it  may, 

As  come  it  will  for  a'  that, 
That  sense  and  worth,  o'er  a'  the  earth 

May  bear  the  gree,  and  a'  that; 
For  a'  that,  and  a'  that, 

It's  coming  yet,  for  a'  that, 
That  man  to  man,  the  warld  o'er, 

Shall  brothers  be  for  a'  that. 

It  is  perhaps  as  a  singer  of  songs  that  the 
literary  fame  of  Burns  will  longest  be  pre 
served.  No  other  poet  has  ever  breathed 
such  music  from  his  soul.  His  melodies  are 
as  sweet  and  pure  as  the  bubbling  spring ; 
and  as  natural  and  spontaneous  as  ever  came 
from  the  throat  of  the  nightingale  or  lark. 
These  songs  could  not  be  made.  The  feel 
ing  and  passion  that  left  his  soul  bore  this 
music  as  naturally  as  the  zephyr  that  has 
fanned  the  strings  of  the  /Eolian  harp.  The 
meter  of  these  songs  was  not  learned  by 
scanning  latin  verse,  or  studying  the  dry 
rules  that  govern  literary  art,  but  it  was  born 
of  the  regular  pulse  beats,  which  in  the 
heart  of  Nature's  poets  are  as  smooth  and 
unstudied  as  the  rippling  laughter  of  her 
purling  brooks. 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

John  Anderson,  my  jo,  John, 

When  we  were  first  acquent, 
Your  locks  were  like  the  raven, 

Your  bonnie  brow  was  brent; 
But  now  your  brow  is  beld,  John, 

Your  locks  are  like  the  snow; 
But  blessing  on  your  frosty  pow, 

John  Anderson,  my  jo. 

John  Anderson,  my  jo,  John, 

We  clamb  the  hill  tegither, 
And  mony  a  canty  day,  John, 

We've  had  wi'  ane  anither; 
Now  we  maun  totter  down,  John, 

But  hand  in  hand  we'll  go, 
And  sleep  tegither  at  the  foot, 

John  Anderson,  my  jo. 

Although  a  plough  boy  and  surrounded 
by  the  grime  and  dirt  that  come  from  contact 
with  the  soil,  still  even  here  Burns  found  ma 
terial  for  music  and  poetry  that  will  live  as 
long  as  human  hearts  endure ;  for,  though 
the  sky  may  be  warmer  and  bluer  on  the 
Mediterranean  shore  than  where  it  domes  the 
Scottish  hills  and  crags,  still  the  same  heaven 
bends  above  them  both,  and  the  same  infinite 
mysteries  are  hidden  in  their  unfathomed 
depths.  The  tragedy  of  death  is  alike, 
whether  defying  the  power  of  a  Prince,  or 
entering  the  home  of  the  humblest  peasant 
to  bring  the  first  moments  of  relief  and  rest. 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

The  miracle  of  life,  whether  wrought  by 
Nature  on  the  rich  couch  of  the  Queen  or 
the  unwatched  pallet  of  the  peasant,  is  the 
same  mystery,  ever  new,  ever  old,  appealing 
ever  to  the  heart  of  man.  The  affections 
and  passions, — those  profound  feelings  that 
Nature  planted  deep  in  the  being  of  all  sen 
tient  things,  and  on  whose  strength  all  life 
depends, — these  are  the  deepest  and  purest 
as  we  leave  the  conventions  and  trappings 
of  the  artificial  world,  and  draw  nearer  to 
the  heart  of  the  great  Universal  power. 
With  the  sky  above,  the  fields  around,  and 
all  Nature  throbbing  and  teeming  with 
pulsing  life,  but  one  thing  more  was  needed 
to  make  harmony  and  music,  and  that  was 
Robert  Burns. 

The  old  story  of  human  love  was  sung  by 
him  a  thousand  times  and  in  a  thousand  va 
rying  moods,  as  never  love  was  sung  before. 
It  mattered  not  that  his  melodies  breathed 
of  rustic  scenes,  of  country  maids,  and  of 
plain  untutored  hearts  that  beat  as  Nature 
made  them  feel,  unfettered  by  the  restraints 
and  cords  of  an  artificial  life.  Transport  his 
Mary  to  a  gorgeous  palace,  and  deck  her 
fair  form  with  the  richest  treasures  of  the 
earth  and  bring  to  her  side  the  proudest 
noble  that  ever  paid  homage  to  a  princess, 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

and  no  singer, — not  even  Burns  himself, — 
could  make  a  melody  like  the  matchless  mu 
sic  that  he  sung  to  Highland  Mary. 

How  sweetly  bloom'd  the  gay  green  birk, 
How  rich  the  hawthorn's  blossom; 

As  underneath  their  fragrant  shade, 
I  clasp'd  her  to  my  bosom ! 

The  golden  hours,  on  angel  wings, 

Flew  o'er  me  and  my  dearie; 
For  dear  to  me  as  light  and  life 

Was  my  sweet  Highland  Mary. 

All  the  conventions  and  baubles  and  span 
gles  which  fashion  and  custom  use  to  adorn 
the  fair  could  only  have  cheapened  and 
made  vulgar  the  rustic  maiden  that  moved 
Burns'  soul  to  song. 

These  sweet  lines  could  never  have  been 
written  of  any  but  a  simple  country  lass, 
whose  natural  charms  had  moved  a  suscepti 
ble  human  heart: 

I  see  her  in  the  dewy  flowers, 

I  see  her  sweet  and  fair; 
I  hear  hear  in  the  tunefu'  birds, 

I  hear  her  charm  the  air; 

There's  not  a  bonnie  flower  that  springs 

By  fountain,  shaw,  or  green, 
There's  not  a  bonnie  bird  that  sings, 

But  minds  me  o'  my  Jean. 

90 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Who  was  this  Burns  that  sang  these  sweet 
songs  and  whose  musical  soul  was  stirred  by 
every  breeze  and  moved  to  poetry  by  every 
lovely  face  and  form  that  came  within  his 
view?  Biographers  and  critics  and  admirers 
have  praised  the  genius  and  begged  excuses 
for  the  man.  Without  asking  charity  for 
this  illustrious  singer,  let  us  view  him  in  the 
light  of  justice,  exactly  as  he  was.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  the  character  of 
Robert  Burns.  His  heart  was  generous  and 
warm  and  kind;  his  mind  was  open  as  the 
day,  and  his  soul  was  sensitive  to  every 
breath  that  stirred  the  air.  These  qualities 
have  made  the  poet  loved  in  every  land  on 
earth,  and  brought  more  pilgrims  to  his 
grave  than  were  ever  drawn  to  the  tomb  of 
any  other  poet  or  author  that  has  ever  lived 
and  died.  And  yet  the  short-sighted,  carp 
ing,  moralizing  world,  with  solemn  voice 
and  wisdom  ill-assumed,  has  ever  told  how 
much  better  and  holier  he  could  have  been 
and  should  have  been.  Poor,  silly,  idle 
world,  can  you  never  learn  that  the  qualities 
that  make  us  strong  must  also  make  us  weak; 
that  the  heart  that  melts  at  suffering  and 
pain  is  made  of  clay  so  sensitive  and  fine  as 
to  be  moved  and  swayed  by  all  the  emotions 
of  the  soul?  Would  you  serve  the  weak,  the 

91 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

suffering  and  the  poor — would  you  calm 
their  fears  and  dry  their  eyes  and  feel  with 
them  the  cruel  woes  of  life — you  must  wear 
your  heart  upon  your  sleeve,  and  then  of 
course  the  daws  will  peck  it  into  bits. 
Would  you  keep  it  safely  hidden  from  the 
daws,  you  must  hide  it  in  a  breast  of  stone 
or  ice  and  keep  it  only  for  yourself.  Per 
haps  we  may  admire  the  man  that  walks 
with  steady  step  along  a  straight  and  nar 
row  path,  unmoved  by  all  the  world  outside. 
He  never  feels  and  never  errs.  But  we  can 
not  ask  of  either  man  the  virtues  that  belong 
to  both,  and  when  our  choice  is  made  we 
must  take  the  strength  and  weakness  too. 

We  look  at  the  mountain  top,  lifting  its 
snow-crowned  head  high  into  the  everlast 
ing  blue,  and  are  moved  with  wonder  and 
with  awe.  Above  is  the  endless  sky;  below, 
the  world  with  all  its  bickering  and  strife, 
the  clouds,  the  lightning  and  the  storm,  but 
the  mountain,  cold,  impassive,  changeless, 
unmoved  by  all  the  world,  looks  ever  up 
ward  to  the  eternal  heavens  above.  Again 
we  gaze  on  the  peaceful,  fertile  lowlands, 
rich  with  their  generous  harvests  yet  unborn 
— beautiful  with  their  winding  streams  and 
grassy  fields,  ever  ready  to  bestow  boun 
teously  on  all  that  ask,  demanding  little  and 

92 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

lavishly  returning  all ;  and  we  love  the  quiet, 
rustic,  generous  beauty  of  the  scene.  The 
mountain  is  majestic  and  sublime,  and  the 
yielding,  generous  lowlands  are  beautiful 
and  pleasing  too.  We  love  them  both,  but 
we  cannot  have  them  both  at  once  and  both 
in  one. 

Robert  Burns,  and  all  men  like  him  that 
ever  lived,  were  always  giving  from  their 
generous  souls.  In  the  cold  judgment  of  the 
world,  Burns  wasted  many  a  gem  upon  the 
thoughtless,  worthless  crowd,  who  consumed 
a  life  he  should  have  spent  for  nobler 
things.  But  the  flower  that  never  wastes  its 
fragrance  has  no  perfume  to  give  out.  If  it 
is  truly  sweet,  its  strength  is  borne  away  on 
every  idle  wind  that  blows.  Robert  Burns 
with  lavish  bounty  shed  his  life  and  fragrance 
on  every  soul  he  met.  He  loved  them  all 
and  loved  them  well:  his  sensitive,  harmo 
nious  soul  vibrated  to  every  touch,  and 
moved  in  perfect  harmony  with  every  heart 
that  came  within  his  reach.  The  lives  of 
men  like  him  are  one  long  harmony ;  but  as 
they  pass  along  the  stage  of  life,  they  leave 
a  trail  of  disappointed  hopes,  and  broken 
hearts,  and  vain  regrets.  But  of  all  the 
tragedies  great  and  small  that  mark  their 
path,  the  greatest  far  and  most  pathetic  is 

93 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

the  sad  and  hopeless  wreck  that  ever  surely 
falls  upon  the  exhausted  artist's  life. 

The  life  of  Burns  was  filled  with  wrecks — 
with  promises  made  and  broken,  with  hopes 
aroused,  and  then  dashed  to  earth  again.  It 
was  filled  with  these  because  one  man  can 
not  give  himself  personally  to  all  the  world. 
The  vices  of  Robert  Burns  perhaps  like 
those  of  all  the  rest  that  ever  lived,  were 
virtues  carried  to  excess.  Of  course,  the 
world  could  not  understand  it  then,  and 
cannot  understand  it  now,  and  perhaps  it 
never  will,  for  slander  and  malice  and  envy, 
like  death,  always  love  a  shinning  mark. 
The  life  of  Burns  and  the  life  of  each  is  the 
old  Greek  fable  told  again.  Achilles'  mother 
would  make  him  invulnerable  by  dipping 
him  in  the  river  Styx.  She  held  him  by  the 
heel,  which  remained  unwashed  and  vul 
nerable,  and  finally  brought  him  to  his 
death.  To  whatever  dizzy  height  we  climb, 
and  however  invulnerable  we  seek  to  be, 
there  still  remains  with  all  the  untouched 
heel  that  binds  us  to  the  earth.  And  after 
all,  this  weak  and  human  spot,  is  the  truest 
bond  of  kinship  that  unites  the  world. 

I  look  back  at  Robert  Burns,  at  the  poor 
human  life  that  went  out  a  hundred  years 
ago,  and  study  its  works  to  know  the  man. 

94 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

I  care  not  what  his  neighbors  thought;  I 
care  not  for  the  idle  gossip  of  an  idle  hour. 
I  know  that  his  immortal  songs  were  not 
born  of  his  wondrous  brain  alone,  but  of 
the  gentlest,  trust,  tenderest  heart  that  ever 
felt  another's  pain.  I  know  full  well  that 
the  love  songs  of  Robert  Burns  could  have 
come  from  no  one  else  than  Robert  Burns. 
I  know  that  even  the  Infinite  could  not 
have  changed  the  man  and  left  the  songs. 
Burns,  like  all  true  poets,  told  us  what  he 
felt  and  saw,  and  it  is  not  for  me  to  ask  ex 
cuses  for  this  or  that;  but  rather  reverently 
to  bow  my  head  in  the  presence  of  this  great 
memory,  and  thank  the  infinite  source  of 
life  for  blessing  us  with  Robert  Burns  ex 
actly  as  he  was. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  our  own  be 
ing;  it  is  impossible  to  know  our  fellow 
man's,  but  I  have  faith  to  think  that  all  life 
is  but  a  portion  of  one  great  inclusive  power, 
and  that  all  is  good  and  none  is  bad.  The 
true  standard  for  judging  Burns  and  all  other 
men  is  given  by  Carlyle,  and  I  cannot  re 
frain  from  borrowing  and  adopting  what  he 
says : 

"  The  world  is  habitually  unjust  in  its  judg 
ments  of  such  men ;  unjust  on  many 
grounds,  of  which  this  one  may  be  stated  as 

95 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

the  substance :  It  decides,  like  a  court  of 
law,  by  dead  statutes;  and  not  positively  but 
negatively,  less  on  what  is  done  right  than 
on  what  is  or  is  not  done  wrong.  Not  the 
few  inches  of  deflection  from  the  mathemat 
ical  orbit,  which  are  so  easily  measured,  but 
the  ratio  of  these  to  the  whole  diameter, 
constitutes  the  real  aberration.  This  orbit 
may  be  a  planet's,  its  diameter  the  breadth 
of  the  solar  system ;  or  it  may  be  a  city  hip 
podrome  ;  nay,  the  circle  of  a  ginhorse,  its 
diameter  a  score  of  feet  or  paces.  But  the 
inches  of  deflection  only  are  measured ;  and 
it  is  assumed  that  the  diameter  of  the  gin- 
horse  and  that  of  the  planet  will  yield  the 
same  ratio  when  compared  with  them! 
Here  lies  the  root  of  many  a  blind,  cruel 
condemnation  of  Burns,  Swift,  Rousseau, 
which  one  never  listens  to  with  approval. 
Granted,  the  ship  comes  into  harbor  with 
shrouds  and  tackle  damaged;  the  pilot  is 
blameworthy;  he  has  not  been  all-wise  and 
all-powerful ;  but  to  know  how  blameworthy; 
tell  us  first  whether  his  voyage  has  been 
around  the  Globe,  or  only  to  Ramsgate  and 
the  Isle  of  Dogs." 

Robert  Burns  has  been  dust  for  a  hundred 
years,  and  yet  the  world  knows  him  better 
now  than  the  neighbors  that  lived  beside  his 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

door.  I  look  back  upon  the  little  village  of 
Dumfries, — not  the  first  or  the  last  town  that 
entertained  angels  unawares.  I  see  poor 
Robert  Burns  passing  down  the  street,  and 
the  pharisees  and  self-righteous  walking  on 
the  other  side.  The  bill  of  indictment 
brought  against  him  by  the  Dumfries  com 
munity  was  long  and  black ;  he  was  intem 
perate,  immoral,  irreligious,  and  disloyal  to 
the  things  that  were.  The  first  two  would 
doubtless  have  been  forgiven,  but  the  others 
could  not  be  condoned.  And  so  this  illus 
trious  man  walked  an  outcast  through  the 
town  that  to-day  makes  its  proudest  boast 
that  it  holds  the  ashes  of  the  mighty  dead, 
who  in  life  was  surrounded  by  such  a  halo  of 
glory  that  his  neighbors  could  not  see  his 
face. 

A  hundred  years  ago  Scotland  was  held 
tightly  in  the  grasp  of  the  Presbyterian  faith. 
Calvinism  is  not  very  attractive  even  now, 
especially  to  us  that  live  and  expect  to  die 
outside  its  fold,  but  even  Calvinism  has  soft 
ened  and  changed  in  a  hundred  years. 
Burns  was  too  religious  to  believe  in  the 
Presbyterian  faith,  and  to  the  Scotch  Coven 
anter  there  was  no  religion  outside  the  Cal- 
vinistic  creed.  How  any  man  can  read  the 
poetry  of  Robert  Burns  and  not  feel  the 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

deep  religious  spirit  that  animates  its  lines 
is  more  than  I  can  see.  True,  he  ridicules 
the  dogmas  and  the  creeds  that  held  the  hu 
manity  and  intellect  of  Scotland  in  its  para 
lyzing  grasp  ;  but  creeds  and  dogmas  are 
the  work  of  man ;  they  come  and  go ;  are 
born  and  die;  serve  their  time  and  pass 
away;  but  the  love  of  humanity,  the  in 
stincts  of  charity  and  tenderness,  the  deep 
reverence  felt  in  the  presence  of  the  infinite 
mystery  and  power  that  pervade  the  uni 
verse,  these,  the  basis  of  all  the  religions  of 
the  earth,  remain  forever,  while  creeds  and 
dogmas  crumble  to  the  dust. 

Scotland  of  a  hundred  years  ago  measured 
Burns'  religion  by  "  Holy  Willie's  Prayer," 
"The  Holy  Fair,"  and  kindred  songs.  The 
world  a  hundred  years  from  now  will  not 
make  these  the  only  test.  Dumfries  and  all 
the  Unco'  Guid  of  Scotland  could  not  for 
give  Burns  for  writing : 

0  Thou  wha  in  the  heavens  dost  dwell, 
Wha,  as  it  pleases  best  thyseP, 

Sends  ane  to  heaven  and  ten  to  hell, 

A'  for  thy  glory, 
And  no  for  ony  guid  or  ill 

They've  done  afore  thee ! 

1  bless  and  praise  thy  matchless  might, 
When  thousands  thou  hast  left  in  night, 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

That  I  am  here  afore  thy  sight, 

For  gifts  an,  grace, 
A  burnin,  an  a  shinin'  light, 

To  a'  this  place. 

Lord,  hear  my  earnest  cry  an'  pray'r, 

Against  that  presbt'ry  o'  Ayr; 

Thy  strong  right  hand,  Lord  make  it  bare 

Upo'  their  heads ! 
Lord,  weigh  it  down,  an'  dinna  spare, 

For  their  misdeeds. 

But,  Lord,  remember  me  and  mine 
Wi'  mercies  temp'ral  and  divine, 
That  I  for  gear  and  grace  may  shine, 

Excell'd  by  name; 
And  a'  the  glory  shall  be  thine, 

Amen,  Amen. 

It  was  not  enough  that  Robert  Burns 
taught  a  religion  as  pure  and  gentle  and 
loving  as  that  proclaimed  by  the  Nazarene 
himself.  Its  meaning  and  beauty  and  char 
ity  were  lost  on  those  who  would  not  see. 
Long  ago  it  was  written  down  that,  u  Inas 
much  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the 
least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it 
unto  me."  If  this  is  any  test  of  a  religious 
life,  then  few  men  will  stand  as  high  in  the 
great  beyond  as  Robert  Burns.  This  poor 
poet  has  melted  more  hearts  to  pity  and 
moved  more  souls  to  mercy,  and  inclined 
more  lives  to  charity  than  any  other  poet 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

that  ever  dreamed  and  sung.  Not  men  and 
women  and  children  alone  were  the  objects 
of  his  bounteous  love  and  tender  heart,  but 
he  felt  the  pain  of  the  bird,  the  hare,  the 
mouse,  and  even  the  daisy  whose  roots  were 
upturned  to  the  biting  blast.  Hear  him 
sing  of  the  poor  bird  for  whom  he  shudders 
at  the  winter's  cold  : 

Ilka  hopping  bird,  we  helpless  thing 
That  in  the  merry  month  o'  spring 
Delighted  me  to  hear  thee  sing, 

What  comes  o'  thee ! 
Where  wilt  thou  cow'r  thy  chilling  wing 

And  close  thy  ee  ? 

Few  men  that  ever  lived  would  stop  and 
lament  with  Burns,  as  he  shattered  the  poor 
clay  home  of  the  field  mouse  with  his 
plough.  No  matter  what  he  did;  no  matter 
what  he  said  ;  no  matter  what  his  creed ;  the 
man  that  wrote  these  lines  deserves  a  place 
with  the  best  and  purest  of  this  world  or  any 
other  that  the  Universe  may  hold. 

Wee,  sleekit,  cow'rin,  tim'rous  beastie ! 
O,  what  a  panic's  in  thy  breastie ! 
Thou  need  na  start  awa  sae  hasty, 

Wi*  bickerin'  brattle; 
I  wad  be  laith  to  rin  an'  chase  thee, 

Wi'  murd'ring  prattle  ? 

In  a  world  which  still  enjoys  the  brutal 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

chase,  where  even  clergymen  find  pleasure 
in  inflicting  pain  with  the  inhuman  gun  and 
rod,  these  lines  written  a  hundred  years  ago, 
on  seeing  a  wounded  hare  limp  by,  should 
place  Burns  amongst  the  blessed  of  the 
earth : 

Inhuman  man !  curse  on  thy  barb'rous  art, 
And  blasted  be  thy  murder-aiming  eye; 
May  never  pity  sooth  thee  with  a  sight, 
Nor  ever  pleasure  glad  thy  cruel  heart ! 


Oft,  as  by  winding  Nith  I  musing  wait.^  //^  ^    ; 
The  sober  eve,  or  hail  the  cheerful  dawn, 
I'll  miss  thee  sporting  o'er  the  dewy  lawn, 
And  curse  the  ruffian's  aim,  and  mourn  thy 
hapless  fate. 

This  was  Robert  Burns, — and  yet  Dum 
fries,  which  held  this  gentle  soul  within  its 
walls,  and  the  Protestant  world  of  a  hundred 
years  ago,  looked  at  John  Calvin  piling  the 
faggots  around  Servetus'  form,  and  knelt 
before  him  as  a  patron,  religious  saint,  while 
they  cast  into  outer  darkness  poor  Robert 
Burns  with  his  heart  bowed  down  at  the  suf 
fering  of  a  wounded  hare. 

Will  the  world  ever  learn  what  true  re 
ligion  is  ?  Will  it  ever  learn  that  mercy  and 
pity  and  charity  are  more  in  the  sight  of  the 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Infinite  than  all  the  creeds  and  dogmas  of 
the  earth  ?  Will  it  ever  learn  to  believe  this 
beautiful  verse  of  Robert  Burns  : 

But  deep  this  truth  impressed  my  mind, 

Through    all  his  works  abroad; 
The  heart  benevolent  and  kind, 

The  most  resembles  God. 

Will  the  world  ever  learn  when  it  prays  to 
pray  with  Robert  Burns,  as  man  has  seldom 
spoken  to  the  Infinite,  in  whose  unknown 
hands',  we  are  as  bubbles  on  the  sea ;  to  the 
great  power,  which  sends  us  forth  into  the 
darkness  to  stagger  through  a  tangled  maze 
for  a  little  time  and  then  calls  us  back  to 
sleep  within  its  all-embracing  heart. 

O  thou,  unknown,  Almighty  Cause 

Of  all  my  hope  and  fear ! 
In  whose  dread  presence,  ere  an  hour, 

Perhaps  I  must  appear ! 

If  I  have  wandered  in  those  paths 

Of  life  I  ought  to  shun; — 
As  something  loudly  in  my  breast 

Remonstrates  I  have  done; — 

Thou  know'st  that  Thou  hast  formed  me 

With  passion  wild  and  strong; 
And  list'ning  to  their  witching  voice 

Has  often  led  me  wrong. 

Where  human  weakness  has  come  short, 

Or  frailty  step  aside, 
Do  thou,  All  Good  ? — for  such  thou  art 

In  shades  of  darkness  hide. 

IO2 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Where  with  intention  I  have  err'd, 

No  other  plea  I  have 
But,  Thou  art  good !  and  goodness  still 

Delighteth  to  forgive ! 

Dear  Robert  Burns,  to  place  one  flower 
upon  your  grave,  or  add  one  garland  to 
your  fame  is  a  privilege  indeed.  A  noble 
man  you  were,  knighted  not  by  King  or 
Queen,  but  titled  by  the  Infinite  Maker  of 
us  all.  You  loved  the  world ;  you  loved  all 
life;  you  were  gentle,  kind  and  true.  Your 
works,  your  words,  your  deeds,  will  live  and 
shine  to  teach  the  brotherhood  of  man,  the 
kinship  of  all  breathing  things,  and  make 
the  world  a  brighter,  gentler,  kindlier  place 
because  you  lived  and  loved  and  sung. 


103 


REALISM 

IN  LITERATURE 
AND  ART 


REALISM  IN  LITERATURE  AND  ART 

AN  is  nature's  last  and  most 

Eerfect  work,  but,  however 
igh  his  development  or 
great  his  achievements,  he  is 
yet  a  child  of  the  earth  and 
the  rude  forces  that  have 
formed  all  the  life  that  exists 
thereon.  He  cannot  separate  himself  from 
the  environment  that  gave  him  birth,  and  a 
thousand  ties  of  nature  bind  him  back  to  the 
long  forgotten  past  and  prove  his  kinship  to 
all  the  lower  forms  of  life  that  have  sprung 
from  that  great  universal  mother,  Earth. 

As  there  is  a  common  law  of  being,  which 
controls  all  living  things,  from  the  aimless 
motions  of  the  mollusk  in  the  sea  to  the 
most  perfect  conduct  of  the  best  developed 
man,  so  all  the  activities  of  human  life,  from 
the  movements  of  the  savage  digging  roots, 
to  the  work  of  the  greatest  artist  with  his 
brush,  are  controlled  by  universal  law,  and 
are  good  or  bad,  perfect  or  imperfect,  as 
they  conform  to  the  highest  condition  na 
ture  has  imposed. 

The  early  savage  dwelt  in  caves  and  cliffs 
and  spent  his  life  in  seeking  food  and  pro 
viding  a  rude  shelter  from  the  cold.  He 
looked  upon  the  earth,  the  sun,  the  sea,  the 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

sky,  the  mountain  peak,  the  forest  and  the 
plain,  and  all  he  saw  and  heard  formed  an 
impression  on  his  brain  and  aided  in  his 
growth.  Like  a  child  he  marveled  at  the 
storm  and  flood;  he  stood  in  awe  as  he  looked 
upon  disease  and  death;  and  to  explain 
the  things  he  could  not  understand,  he  peo 
pled  earth  and  air  and  sea  with  gods  and  de 
mons,  and  a  thousand  other  weird  creations 
of  his  brain.  All  these  mysterious  creatures 
were  made  in  the  image  of  the  natural  ob 
jects  that  came  within  his  view.  The  gods 
were  men  grown  large  and  endowed  with 
marvelous  powers,  while  tree  and  bird  and 
beast  alike  were  used  as  models  for  a  being 
greater  far  than  any  nature  ever  formed. 

An  angry  god  it  was  that  made  the  rivers 
overrun  their  banks  and  leave  destruction  in 
their  path;  an  offended  god  it  was  that  hurled 
his  thunderbolts  upon  a  wicked  world, 
or  sent  disease  and  famine  to  the  sinning 
children  of  the  earth:  and  to  coax  these 
rulers  to  be  merciful  to  man,  the  weak  and 
trembling  children  of  the  ancient  world 
turned  their  minds  to  sacrifice  and  prayer. 
And  the  first  clouded  thoughts  of  these  rude 
men  that  were  transcribed  on  monument 
and  stone,  or  carved  in  wood,  or  painted 
with  the  colors  borrowed  from  the  sun  and 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

earth  and  sky;  in  short,  the  first  rude  art  was 
born  to  sing  the  praise,  and  tell  the  fame, 
and  paint  the  greatness  of  the  gods.  But  all 
of  this  was  natural  to  the  time  and  place ;  the 
graven  images,  the  chiseled  hieroglyphics, 
and  all  this  rude  beginning  of  literature  and 
art  were  formed  upon  what  men  saw  and 
heard  and  felt,  enlarged  and  magnified  to  fit 
the  stature  of  the  gods. 

As  the  world  grew  older  art  was  used  to 
celebrate  the  greatness  and  achievements  of 
kings  and  rulers  as  well  as  gods,  and  their 
tombs  were  ornamented  with  such  decora 
tions  as  these  early  ages  could  create ;  and 
yet  all  literature  and  art  were  only  for  the 
gods  and  the  rulers  of  the  world.  Then, 
even  more  than  now,  wealth  and  power 
brought  intellect  to  do  its  will,  and  all  its 
force  was  spent  to  sing  the  praises  of  the 
rulers  of  the  earth  and  air.  The  basis  of  all 
this  art  of  pen  and  brush  was  the  reality  of 
the  world,  but  this  was  so  magnified  and 
distorted  for  the  base  use  of  kings  and 
priests  that  realism,  in  the  true  sense,  could 
not  exist.  It  would  not  do  to  paint  a  picture 
of  a  king  resembling  a  man  of  flesh  and 
blood,  and  of  course  a  god  must  be  far 
greater  than  a  king.  It  would  not  do  to 
write  a  tale  in  which  kings  and  princes,  lords 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

and  ladies,  should  act  like  men  and  women, 
else  what  difference  between  the  ruler  and 
the  ruled?  The  marvelous  powers  that  ro 
mance  and  myth  had  given  to  gods  and 
angels  were  transferred  to  those  of  royal 
blood.  The  wonderful  achievements  of 
these  kings  and  princes  could  be  equaled 
only  by  the  gods,  and  the  poor  dependents 
of  the  world,  who  lived  for  the  glory  of  the 
great,  were  fed  with  legends  and  with  tales 
that  sung  the  praises  of  the  strong. 

Literature,  sculpture,  painting,  music,  and 
architecture,  indeed  all  forms  of  art,  were 
the  exclusive  property  of  the  great,  and  the 
artist  then,  like  most  of  those  to-day,  was 
retained  to  serve  the  strong  and  maintain  the 
status  of  the  weak.  No  one  dreamed  that 
there  was  any  beauty  in  a  common  human 
life  or  any  romance  in  a  fact.  The  greatest 
of  the  earth  had  not  yet  learned  to  know 
that  every  life  is  a  mystery  and  every  death 
a  tragedy;  that  the  spark  of  the  infinite, 
which  alone  transforms  clay  to  life,  animates 
alike  the  breast  of  the  peasant  and  the  soul 
of  the  prince.  The  world  had  not  yet 
learned  that  the  ant-hill  is  as  great  as  Mont 
Blanc,  and  the  blade  of  grass  as  mysterious 
as  the  oak.  It  is  only  now  that  the  world  is 
growing  so  delicate  and  refined  that  it  can 

I  10 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

see  the  beauty  of  a  fact ;  that  it  is  develop 
ing  a  taste  so  rare  as  to  distinguish  between 
the  false  and  true ;  that  it  can  be  moved  by 
the  gentle  breeze  as  well  as  by  the  winter's 
gale ;  that  it  can  see  greater  beauty  in  a 
statement  true  to  life,  than  in  the  inflated 
tales,  which  children  read. 

Most  of  the  art  and  literature  the  world 
has  known  has  been  untrue.  The  pictures 
of  the  past  have  been  painted  from  the  dis 
torted  minds  of  visionists,  and  the  pliant 
brains  of  tools.  They  have  represented  im 
possible  gods  and  unthinkable  saints ;  angels 
and  cherubs  and  demons ;  everything  but 
men  and  women.  Saints  may  be  all  right 
in  their  place,  but  a  saint  with  a  halo  around 
his  head  was  born  of  myth  and  not  of  art. 
Angels  may  be  well  enough,  but  all  rational 
men  prefer  an  angel  with  arms  to  an  angel 
with  wings.  When  these  artists  were  not 
drawing  saints  and  madonnas,  they  were 
spending  their  time  in  painting  kings  and 
royal  knaves ;  and  the  pictures  of  the  rulers 
were  as  unlike  the  men  and  women  that 
they  were  said  to  represent  as  the  servile 
spirit  of  the  painter  was  unlike  that  of  the 
true  artist  of  to-day.  Of  course  an  artist 
would  not  paint  the  poor;  they  had  no 
clothes  that  would  adorn  a  work  of  art,  and 

1 1 1 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

no  money  nor  favors  that  could  remunerate 
the  toil.  An  ancient  artist  could  no  more 
afford  to  serve  the  poor  than  a  modern  law 
yer  could  defend  the  weak. 

After  literature  had  so  far  advanced  as  to 
concern  other  beings  than  gods  and  kings, 
the  authors  of  these  ancient  days  told  of 
wondrous  characters  endowed  with  marvel 
ous  powers ;  knights  with  giant  strength  and 
magic  swords ;  princes  with  wondrous  pal 
aces  and  heaps  of  gold ;  travelers  that  met 
marvelous  beasts  and  slew  them  in  extraor 
dinary  ways;  giants  with  forms  like  moun 
tains,  and  strength  like  oxen,  who  could 
vanquish  all  but  little  dwarfs.  Railroads 
were  not  invented  in  those  early  days, 
but  travel  was  facilitated  by  the  use  of  seven 
league  boots.  Balloons  and  telescopes  were 
not  yet  known,  but  this  did  not  keep  favored 
heroes  from  peering  at  the  stars  or  looking 
down  from  on  high  upon  the  earth;  they 
had  but  to  plant  a  magic  bean  before  they 
went  to  bed  at  night,  and  in  the  morning  it 
had  grown  so  tall  that  it  reached  up  to  the 
sky;  and  the  hero,  although  not  skilled  in 
climbing,  needed  simply  to  grasp  the  stalk 
and  say,  "Hitchety,  hatchety,  up  I  go. 
Hitchety,  hatchety,  up  I  go,"  and  by  this 
means  soon  vanish  in  the  clouds.  Tales  of  this 

I  12 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

sort  used  once  to  delight  the  world,  and  the 
readers  half  believed  them  true.  We  give 
them  to  children  now,  and  the  best  of  these 
view  them  with  a  half  contempt. 

The  modern  man  does  not  enjoy  these 
myths.  He  relishes  a  lie,  but  it  must  not  be 
too  big;  it  must  be  so  small  that,  although 
he  knows  in  his  inmost  soul  that  it  is  not 
true,  he  can  yet  half  make  himself  believe 
it  is  not  false.  Most  of  us  have  cherished  a 
pleasing,  waking  dream,  and  have  fondly 
clung  to  the  sweet  delusion  while  we  really 
knew  it  was  not  life.  The  modern  literary 
stomach  is  becoming  so  healthy  that  it  wants 
a  story  at  least  half  true ;  should  the  false 
hood  be  too  strong,  it  acts  as  an  emetic  in 
stead  of  food.  These  old  fairy  tales  have 
lost  their  power  to  charm,  as  the  stories  of 
the  gods  and  kings  went  down  before.  They 
have  lost  their  charm,  for  as  we  read  them 
now,  they  wake  no  answering  chord  born  of 
the  experiences  that  make  up  what  we  know 
of  human  life. 

When  the  beauty  of  realism  shall  be  truly 
known,  we  shall  read  the  book,  or  look  up 
on  the  work  of  art,  and  in  the  light  of  all 
we  know  of  life,  shall  ask  our  beings 
whether  the  picture  that  the  author  or  the 
painter  creates  for  us  is  like  the  image  that 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

is  born  of  the  consciousness  that  moves  our 
soul,  and  the  experiences  that  have  made 
us  know. 

Realism  worships  at  the  shrine  of  nature  ; 
it  does  not  say  that  there  may  not  be  a 
sphere  in  which  beings  higher  than  man 
can  live,  or  that  some  time  an  eye  may  not 
rest  upon  a  fairer  sunset  than  was  ever  born 
behind  the  clouds  and  sea,  but  it  knows 
that  through  countless  ages  nature  has  slow 
ly  fitted  the  brain  and  eye  of  man  to  the 
earth  on  which  we  live  and  the  objects  that 
we  see:  and  the  perfect  earthly  eye  must 
harmonize  with  the  perfect  earthly  scene. 

To  say  that  realism  is  coarse  and  vulgar  is 
to  declare  against  nature  and  her  works,  and 
to  assert  that  the  man  she  made  may  dream 
of  things  higher  and  grander  than  nature 
could  unfold.  The  eye  of  the  great  sculptor 
reveals  to  him  the  lines  that  make  the  most 
perfect  human  form,  and  he  chisels  out  the 
marble  block  until  it  resembles  this  image 
so  completely  that  it  almost  seems  to  live. 
Nature,  through  ages  of  experiment  and  de 
velopment,  has  made  this  almost  faultless 
form.  It  is  perfect  because  every  part  is 
best  fitted  for  the  separate  work  it  has  to  do. 
The  artist  knows  that  he  could  not  improve 
a  single  organ  if  he  would,  for  all  the  rest  of 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

nature  must  be  adjusted  to  the  change.  He 
has  the  skill  to  reproduce  this  shape  in  last 
ing  stone,  and  the  human  brain  could  not  con 
ceive  a  form  more  beautiful  and  fair.  Here 
is  a  perfect  image  of  the  highest  work  that 
countless  centuries  of  nature's  toil  has  made, 
and  yet  some  would  seek  to  beautify  and 
sanctify  this  work  by  dressing  it  in  the  garb 
that  shifting  fashion  and  changing  fancy 
makes  for  man. 

Only  the  vulgar  superstition  of  the  past 
ever  suggested  that  the  reproduction  of  hu 
man  forms  in  stone  was  an  unholy  work. 
Through  long  dark  centuries  religion  taught 
that  the  flesh  was  vile  and  bad,  and  that  the 
soul  of  man  was  imprisoned  in  a  charnel 
house,  unfit  for  human  sight.  The  early 
Christians  wounded,  bruised,  and  maimed 
their  house  of  clay;  they  covered  it  with 
skins,  which  under  no  circumstances  could 
be  removed,  and  many  ancient  saints  lived 
and  died  without  ever  having  looked  upon 
the  bodies  nature  gave.  The  images  of 
saints  and  martyrs,  which  in  the  name  of 
religion  were  scattered  through  Europe, 
were  covered  with  paint  and  clothes,  and 
were  nearly  as  hideous  as  the  monks  that 
placed  them  there.  When  the  condition  of 
Europe  and  its  religious  thought  are  clearly 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

understood,  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the 
reception  that  greeted  the  first  dawn  of  mod 
ern  realistic  art.  Sculpture  and  painting  de 
ified  the  material.  They  told  of  beauty  in 
the  human  form  which  hundreds  of  years 
of  religious  fanaticism  had  taught  was  bad 
and  vile.  If  the  flesh  was  beautiful,  what  of 
the  monks  and  priests,  who  had  hidden  it 
from  sight,  who  had  kept  it  covered  night 
and  day  through  all  their  foolish  lives,  who 
maimed  and  bruised,  cut  and  lacerated,  for 
the  glory  of  the  spirit,  which  they  thought 
was  chained  within.  The  church  had  taught 
that  the  death  of  the  flesh  was  the  birth  of 
the  soul,  and  they  therefore  believed  that 
the  artist's  resurrection  of  the  flesh  was  the 
death  of  the  soul. 

This  old  religious  prejudice,  born  of  a 
misty,  superstitious  past,  has  slowly  faded 
from  the  minds  of  men,  but  we  find  its 
traces  even  yet.  The  origin  of  the  feeling 
against  realistic  art  has  well  nigh  been  for 
got,  but  much  of  the  feeling  still  remains. 
No  one  would  now  pretend  to  say  that  all 
the  body  was  unholy  or  unfit  for  sight, 
and  yet  years  of  custom  and  inherited  belief 
have  made  us  think  that  a  part  is  good  and 
the  rest  is  bad:  that  nature,  in  her  work  of 
building  up  the  human  form,  has  made  one 

116 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

part  sacred  and  another  vile.  It  is  easy  to 
mistake  custom  for  nature,  and  inherited  pre 
judice  for  morality.  There  is  scarcely  a  sin 
gle  portion  of  the  human  body  but  that  some 
people  have  thought  it  holy,  and  scarcely  a 
single  portion  but  that  some  have  believed  it 
vile.  It  was  not  shame  that  made  clothing, 
but  clothing  that  made  shame.  If  we  would 
eradicate  from  our  beliefs  all  that  inheritance 
and  environment  have  given,  it  would  be 
hard  for  us  to  guess  how  much  should  still 
remain.  Custom  has  made  most  things  good 
and  most  things  bad,  according  to  the  whim 
of  time  and  place.  To  find  solid  ground  we 
must  turn  to  nature  and  ask  her  what  it  is 
that  conduces  to  the  highest  happiness  and 
the  longest  life. 

The  realistic  artist  cannot  accept  the  pop 
ular  belief,  whatever  that  may  be,  as  to  just 
where  the  dead  line  on  the  human  body 
should  be  drawn  that  separates  the  sacred 
and  profane.  There  are  realists  that  look  at 
all  the  beauty  and  loveliness  of  the  world, 
and  all  its  maladjustments  too,  and  do  not 
seek  to  answer  the  old,  old  question  whether 
back  of  this  is  any  all-controlling  and  de 
signing  power;  they  do  not  answer,  for  they 
cannot  know;  but  they  strive  to  touch  the 
subtle  chord  that  makes  their  individual  lives 

117 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

vibrate  in  harmony  with  the  great  heart  of 
that  nature,  which  they  love;  and  they  can 
not  think  but  that  all  parts  of  life  are  good, 
and  that  while  men  may  differ,  nature  must 
know  best. 

Other  realists  there  are  that  believe  they 
see  in  nature  the  work  of  a  divine  maker, 
who  created  man  in  his  own  image  as  the 
last  and  highest  triumph  of  his  skill;  that  the 
minutest  portion  of  the  universe  exists  be 
cause  he  wished  it  thus.  To  the  realist  that 
accepts  this  all-controlling  power,  any  im 
putation  against  a  portion  of  his  master's 
work  must  reach  back  to  the  author  that  de 
signed  it  all. 

We  need  not  say  that  the  human  body 
might  not  be  better  than  it  is;  we  need  only 
know  that  it  is  the  best  that  man  can  have, 
and  that  its  wondrous  mechanism  has  been 
constructed  with  infinitely  more  than  hu 
man  skill ;  that  every  portion  is  adapted  for 
its  work,  and  through  the  harmony  of  every 
part  the  highest  good  is  reached ;  and  that 
all  is  beautiful,  for  it  makes  the  being  best 
adapted  to  the  earth.  Those  who  denounce 
realistic  art  deny  that  knowledge  is  power 
and  that  wisdom  only  can  make  harmony, 
and  they  insist  instead  that  there  are  some 
things  vital  to  life  and  happiness  that  we 

118 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

should  not  know,  but  that  if  we  must  know 
these  things,  we  should  at  all  events  pretend 
that  we  do  not.  One  day  the  world  will 
learn  that  all  things  are  good  or  bad  accord 
ing  to  the  service  they  perform.  One  day 
it  ought  to  learn  that  the  power  to  create 
immortality,  through  infinite  succeeding 
links  of  human  life,  is  the  finest  and  most 
terrible  that  nature  ever  gave  to  man,  and 
that  to  ignore  this  power  or  call  it  bad,  or 
fail  to  realize  the  great  responsibility  of  this 
tremendous  fact,  is  to  cry  out  against  the 
power  that  gave  us  life,  and  commit  the 
greatest  human  sin,  for  it  may  be  one  that 
never  dies. 

The  true  artist  does  not  find  all  beauty  in 
the  human  face  or  form.  He  looks  upon 
the  sunset,  painting  all  the  clouds  with  rosy 
hue,  and  his  highest  wish  is  to  create  an 
other  scene  like  this.  He  never  dreams 
that  he  could  paint  a  sunset  fairer  than  the 
one  which  lights  the  fading  world.  A  fairer 
sunset  would  be  something  else.  He  sees 
beauty  in  the  quiet  lake,  the  grassy  field, 
and  running  brook;  he  sees  majesty  in  the 
cataract  and  mountain  peak.  He  knows 
that  he  can  paint  no  streams  and  mountain 
peaks  more  perfect  than  the  ones  that 
nature  made. 

119 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

The  growth  of  letters  has  been  like  the 
growth  of  art  from  the  marvelous  and  myth 
ical  to  the  natural  and  true.  The  tales  and 
legends  of  the  ancient  past  were  not  of  com 
mon  men  and  common  scenes.  These 
could  not  impress  the  undeveloped  intellect 
of  long  ago.  A  man  of  letters  could  not 
deify  a  serf,  or  tell  the  simple  story  of  the 
poor.  He  must  write  to  maintain  the  status 
of  the  world,  and  please  the  prince  that  gave 
him  food ;  so  he  told  of  kings  and  queens, 
of  knights  and  ladies,  of  strife  and  conquest; 
and  the  coloring  he  used  was  human  blood. 

The  world  has  grown  accustomed  to  those 
ancient  tales,  to  scenes  of  blood  and  war, 
and  novels  that  would  thrill  the  soul  and 
cause  the  hair  to  stand  on  end.  It  has  read 
these  tales  so  long  that  the  true  seems  com 
monplace,  and  unfit  to  fill  the  pages  of  a 
book.  But  all  the  time  we  forget  the  fact 
that  the  story  could  not  charm  unless  we 
half  believed  it  true.  The  men  and  women 
in  the  tale  we  learn  to  love  and  hate ;  we 
take  an  interest  in  their  lives ;  we  hope  they 
may  succeed  or  fail ;  we  must  not  be  told  at 
every  page  that  the  people  of  the  book  are 
men  of  straw,  that  no  such  beings  ever  lived 
upon  the  earth.  We  could  take  no  interest 
in  men  and  women  that  are  myths  conjured 

120 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

up  to  play  their  parts,  and  remind  us  in 
every  word  they  speak  that,  regardless  of  the 
happiness  or  anguish  the  author  makes  them 
feel,  they  are  but  myths  and  can  know 
neither  joy  nor  pain. 

It  may  be  that  the  realistic  tale  is  common 
place,  but  so  is  life,  and  the  realistic  tale  is 
true.  Among  the  countless  millions  of  the 
earth  it  is  only  here  and  there,  and  now  and 
then,  that  some  soul  is  born  from  out  the 
mighty  deep  that  does  not  soon  return  to 
the  great  sea  and  leave  no  ripple  on  the 
waves. 

In  the  play  of  life  each  actor  seems  im 
portant  to  himself ;  the  world  he  knows  re 
volves  around  him  as  the  central  figure  of 
the  scene ;  his  friends  rejoice  in  all  the  for 
tune  he  attains  and  weep  with  him  in  all  his 
grief.  To  him  the  world  is  bounded  by  the 
faces  that  he  knows,  and  the  scenes  in  which 
he  lives.  He  forgets  the  great  surging  world 
outside,  and  cannot  think  how  small  a  space 
he  fills  in  that  infinity  which  bounds  his  life. 
He  dies,  and  a  few  sorrowing  friends  mourn 
him  for  a  day,  and  the  world  does  not  know 
he  ever  lived  or  ever  died.  In  the  ordinary 
life  nearly  all  events  are  commonplace ;  but 
a  few  important  days  are  thinly  sprinkled  in 
amongst  all  of  those  that  intervene  between 

121 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

the  cradle  and  the  grave.  We  eat  and  drink, 
we  work  and  sleep,  and  here  and  there  a 
great  joy  or  sorrow  creeps  in  upon  our  lives, 
and  leaves  a  day  that  stands  out  against  the 
monotony  of  all  the  rest,  like  the  pyramids 
upon  the  level  plains;  but  these  events  are 
verv  few  and  are  important  only  to  ourselves, 
and  for  the  rest  we  walk  with  steady  pace 
and  slow  along  the  short  and  narrow  path  of 
life,  and  rely  upon  the  common  things  alone 
to  occupy  our  minds  and  hide  from  view  the 
marble  stone  that  here  and  there  gleams 
through  the  over-hanging  trees  just  where 
the  road  leaves  off. 

The  old  novel  which  we  used  to  read  and 
to  which  the  world  so  fondly  clings,  had  no 
idea  of  relation  or  perspective.  It  had  a 
hero  and  a  heroine,  and  sometimes  more 
than  one.  The  revolutions  of  the  planets 
were  less  important  than  their  love.  War, 
shipwreck,  and  conflagration,  all  conspired 
to  produce  the  climax  of  the  scene,  and  the 
whole  world  stood  still  until  the  lovers' 
hearts  and  hands  were  joined.  Wide  oceans, 
burning  deserts,  arctic  seas,  impassable 
jungles,  irate  fathers,  and  even  designing 
mothers,  were  helpless  against  the  decree 
that  fate  had  made,  and  when  all  the  bar 
riers  were  passed  and  love  had  triumphed 

122 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

over  impossibilities,  the  tale  was  done ; 
through  the  rest  of  life  nothing  of  interest 
could  occur.  Sometimes  in  the  progress  of 
the  story,  if  the  complications  were  too  great, 
a  thunderbolt  or  an  earthquake  was  intro 
duced  to  destroy  the  villain  and  help  on  the 
match.  Earthquakes  sometimes  happen, 
and  the  realistic  novelist  might  write  a  tale 
of  a  scene  like  this,  but  then  the  love  affair 
would  be  an  incident  of  the  earthquake,  and 
not  the  earthquake  an  incident  of  the  love 
affair. 

In  real  life  the  affections  have  played  an 
important  part  and  sometimes  great  things 
have  been  done  and  suffered  in  the  name  of 
love,  but  most  of  the  affairs  of  the  human 
heart  have  been  as  natural  as  the  other 
events  of  life. 

The  true  love  story  is  generally  a  simple 
thing.  "  Beside  a  country  road,  on  a  slop 
ing  hill,  lives  a  farmer,  in  the  house  his 
father  owned  before.  He  has  a  daughter, 
who  skims  the  milk,  and  makes  the  beds,  and 
goes  to  singing  school  at  night.  There  are 
other  members  of  the  household,  but  our 
tale  is  no  concern  of  theirs.  In  the  meadow 
back  of  the  house  a  woodchuck  has  dug  its 
hole,  and  reared  a  family  in  its  humble 
home.  Across  the  valley  only  a  mile  away, 

123 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

another  farmer  lives.  He  has  a  son,  who 
plows  the  fields  and  does  the  chores  and 
goes  to  singing  school  at  night.  He  cannot 
sing,  but  attends  the  school  as  regularly  as 
if  he  could.  Of  course  he  does  not  let  the 
girl  go  home  alone,  and  in  the  spring,  when 
singing  school  is  out,  he  visits  her  on  Sunday 
eve  without  excuse.  If  the  girl  had  not  lived 
so  near,  the  boy  would  have  fancied  another 
girl  about  the  same  age,  who  also  went  to 
singing  school.  Back  of  the  second  farmer's 
house  is  another  woodchuck  hole  and  wood- 
chuck  home.  After  a  year  or  two  of  court 
ship  the  boy  and  girl  are  married  as  their 
parents  were  before,  and  they  choose  a  pretty 
spot  beside  the  road,  and  build  another 
house  near  by,  and  settle  down  to  common 
life :  and  so  the  world  moves  on.  And  a 
woodchuck  on  one  farm  meets  a  woodchuck 
on  the  other,  and  they  choose  a  quiet  place 
beside  a  stump,  in  no  one's  way,  where  they 
think  they  have  a  right  to  be,  and  dig 
another  nole  and  make  another  home." 
For  after  all,  men  and  animals  are  much 
alike,  and  nature  loves  them  both  and  loves 
them  all,  and  sends  them  forth  to  drive  the 
loneliness  from  off  the  earth,  and  then  takes 
them  back  into  her  loving  breast  to  sleep. 
It  may  be  that  there  are  few  great  inci- 

124 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

dents  in  the  realistic  take,  but  each  event  ap 
peals  to  life  and  cannot  fail  to  wake  our  memo 
ries  and  make  us  live  the  past  again.  The 
great  authors  of  the  natural  school — Tolstoi, 
Hardy,  Howells,  Daudet,  Ibsen,  Flaubert, 
Zola  and  their  kind,  have  made  us  think  and 
live.  Their  words  have  burnished  up  our 
minds  and  revealed  a  thousand  pictures  that 
hang  upon  the  walls  of  memory,  covered 
with  the  dust  of  years,  and  hidden  from  our 
sight.  Sometimes  of  course  we  cry  with 
pain  at  the  picture  that  is  thrown  before  our 
view,  but  life  consists  of  emotions,  and  we 
cannot  truly  live  unless  the  depths  are 
stirred.  These  great  masters,  it  is  true,  may 
sometimes  shock  the  over-sensitive  with  the 
tales  they  tell  of  life,  but  if  the  tale  is  true, 
why  hide  it  from  our  sight? 

There  is  nothing  more  common  than  the 
protest  against  the  wicked  stories  of  the  re 
alistic  school,  filled  with  tales  of  passion  and 
of  sin ;  but  he  that  denies  passion  denies  all 
the  life  that  exists  upon  the  earth,  and  cries 
out  against  the  mother  that  gave  him  birth. 
And  he  that  ignores  this  truth  passes  with 
contempt  the  greatest  fact  that  nature  has 
impressed  upon  the  world.  Those  who  con 
demn  as  sensual  the  tales  of  Tolstoi  and 
Daudet  still  defend  the  love  stories  of  which 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

our  literature  is  full.  Those  weak  and  silly 
tales  that  make  women  fit  only  to  be  the 
playthings  of  the  world,  and  deny  to  them 
a  single  thought  or  right  except  to  serve 
their  master,  man.  These  objectors  do  not 
contend  that  tales  dealing  witn  the  feelings 
and  affections  shall  not  be  told,  they  approve 
these  tales ;  they  simply  insist  that  they  shall 
be  false  instead  of  true.  The  old  novel  filled 
the  mind  of  the  school  girl  with  a  thousand 
thoughts  that  had  no  place  in  life — with  ten 
thousand  pictures  she  could  never  see.  It 
taught  that  some  time  she  should  meet  a 
prince  in  disguise  to  whom  she  would  freely 
give  her  hand  and  heart.  So  she  went  out 
upon  the  road  to  find  this  prince,  and  the 
more  disguised  he  was,  the  more  certain 
did  she  feel  that  he  was  the  prince  for  whom 
she  sought.  The  realist  paints  the  passions 
and  affections  as  they  are.  Both  man  and 
woman  can  see  their  beauty  and  their  terror, 
their  true  position,  and  the  relation  that 
they  bear  to  all  the  rest  of  life.  He  would 
not  beguile  the  girl  into  the  belief  that 
her  identity  should  be  destroyed  and  merged 
for  the  sake  of  this  feeling,  which  not 
once  in  ten  thousand  times  could  realize 
the  promises  the  novel  made;  but  he 
would  leave  her  as  an  individual  to  make  the 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

most  she  can,  and  all  she  can,  of  life,  with 
all  the  hope  and  chance  of  conquest,  which 
men  have  taken  for  themselves.  Neither 
would  the  realist  cry  out  blindly  against  these 
deep  passions,  which  have  moved  men  and 
women  in  the  past,  and  which  must  continue 
fierce  and  strong  as  long  as  life  exists.  He 
is  taught  by  the  scientist  that  the  fiercest 
heat  may  be  transformed  to  light,  and  is 
taught  by  life  that  from  the  strongest  passions 
are  sometimes  born  the  sweetest  and  the 
purest  souls. 

In  these  days  of  creeds  and  theories,  of 
preachers  in  the  pulpit  and  of  preachers  out, 
we  are  told  that  all  novels  should  have  a 
moral  and  be  written  to  serve  some  end. 
So  we  have  novels  on  religion,  war,  marriage, 
divorce,  socialism,  theosophy,  woman's 
rights,  and  other  topics  without  end.  It  is 
not  enough  that  the  preachers  and  lecturers 
shall  tell  us  how  to  think  and  act ;  the  novel 
ist  must  try  his  hand  at  preaching  too.  He 
starts  out  with  a  theory,  and  every  scene  and 
incident  must  be  bent  to  make  it  plain  that 
the  author  believes  certain  things.  The  do 
ings  of  the  men  and  women  in  the  book  are 
secondary  to  the  views  the  author  holds. 
The  theories  may  be  true,  but  the  poor  char 
acters  that  must  adjust  their  lives  to  these 

127 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

ideal  states  are  sadly  warped  and  twisted  out 
of  shape.  The  realist  would  teach  a  lesson, 
too,  but  he  would  not  violate  a  single  fact 
for  all  the  theories  in  the  world — for  a  theory 
could  not  be  true  if  it  did  violence  to  life. 
He  paints  his  picture  so  true  and  perfect  that 
all  men  who  look  upon  it  know  it  is  a  like 
ness  of  the  world  that  they  have  seen ;  they 
know  that  these  are  men  and  women  and 
little  children  that  they  meet  upon  the  streets; 
they  see  the  conditions  of  their  lives,  and  the 
moral  of  the  picture  sinks  deep  into  their 
minds. 

There  are  so-called  scientists  that  make  a 
theory  and  then  gather  facts  to  prove  their 
theory  true ;  the  real  scientist  patiently  and 
impartially  gathers  facts,  and  then  forms  a 
theory  to  explain  and  harmonize  these  facts. 
All  life  bears  a  moral,  and  the  true  artist 
must  teach  a  lesson  with  his  every  fact.  Some 
contend  that  the  moral  teacher  must  not  tell 
the  truth;  the  realist  holds  that  there  can  be 
no  moral  teaching  like  the  truth.  The 
world  has  grown  tired  of  preachers  and  ser 
mons;  to-day  it  asks  for  facts.  It  has  grown 
tired  of  fairies  and  angels,  and  asks  for  flesh 
and  blood.  It  looks  on  life  as  it  exists,  both 
its  beauty  and  its  horror,  its  joy  and  its  sor 
row;  it  wishes  to  see  it  all;  not  the  prince 

128 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

and  the  millionaire  alone,  but  the  laborer 
and  the  beggar,  the  master  and  the  slave. 
We  see  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly,  and  with 
it  know  what  the  world  is  and  what  it  ought 
to  be;  and  the  true  picture,  which  the  author 
saw  and  painted,  stirs  the  heart  to  holier  feel 
ings  and  to  grander  thoughts. 

It  is  from  the  realities  of  life  that  the  high 
est  idealities  are  born.  The  philosopher 
may  reason  with  unerring  logic,  and  show  us 
where  the  world  is  wrong.  The  economist 
may  tell  us  of  the  progress  and  poverty  that 
go  hand  in  hand ;  but  these  are  theories,  and 
the  abstract  cannot  suffer  pain.  Dickens 
went  out  into  the  streets  of  the  great  city 
and  found  poor  little  Jo  sweeping  the  cross 
ing  with  his  broom.  All  around  was  the 
luxury  and  the  elegance,  which  the  rich  have 
ever  appropriated  to  themselves ;  great  man 
sions,  fine  carriages,  beautiful  dresses,  but  in 
all  the  great  city  of  houses  and  homes,  poor 
little  Jo  could  find  no  place  to  lay  his  head. 
His  home  was  in  the  street,  and  every  time 
he  halted  for  a  moment  in  the  throng,  the 

Eoliceman  touched  him  with  his  club  and 
ade   him  "move  on."      At  last,   ragged, 
wretched,  almost  dead  with   "  moving  on,  " 
he  sank  down  upon  the  cold  stone  steps  of  a 
magnificent  building  erected  for  "  The  Prop- 

1 29 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

agation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts. " 
As  we  think  of  wretched,  ragged  Jo  in  the 
midst  of  all  this  luxury  and  wealth,  we  see 
the  tens  of  thousands  of  other  waifs  in  the 
great  cities  of  the  world,  and  we  condemn 
the  so-called  civilization  of  the  earth  that 
builds  the  mansions  of  the  rich  and  great 
upon  the  rags  and  miseries  of  the  poor. 

The  true  realist  cannot  worship  at  the 
shrine  of  power,  nor  prostitute  his  gifts  for 
gold.  With  an  artist's  eye  he  sees  the  world 
exactly  as  it  is,  and  tells  the  story  faithful 
unto  life.  He  feels  for  every  heart  that 
beats,  else  he  could  not  paint  them  as  he 
does.  It  takes  the  soul  to  warm  a  statue  into 
life  and  make  living  flesh  and  coursing 
blood,  and  each  true  picture  that  he  paints 
or  draws  makes  the  world  a  better  place  in 
which  to  live. 

The  artists  of  the  realistic  school  have  a 
sense  so  fine  that  they  cannot  help  but  catch 
the  inspiration  that  is  filling  all  the  world's 
best  minds  with  the  hope  of  greater  justice 
and  more  equal  social  life.  With  the  vision 
of  the  seer  they  feel  the  coming  dawn  when 
true  equality  shall  reign  upon  the  earth  ;  the 
time  when  democracy  shall  no  more  be  con 
fined  to  constitutions  and  to  laws,butwill  be 
a  part  of  human  life.  The  greatest  artists 

130 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

of  the  world  to-day  are  telling  facts  and 
painting  scenes  that  cause  humanity  to  stop, 
and  think,  and  ask  why  one  should  be  a 
master  and  another  be  a  serf ;  why  a  portion 
of  the  world  should  toil  and  spin,  should 
wear  away  its  strength  and  life,  that  the  rest 
should  live  in  idleness  and  ease. 

The  old-time  artists  thought  they  served 
humanity  by  painting  saints  and  madonnas 
and  angels  from  the  myths  they  conjured  in 
their  brains.  They  painted  war  with  long 
lines  of  soldiers  dressed  in  uniforms,  and 
looking  plump  and  gay ;  and  a  battle  scene 
was  always  drawn  from  the  side  of  the  vic 
torious  camp,  with  the  ensign  proudly  plant 
ing  his  bright  colors  on  the  rampart  of  the 
foe.  One  or  two  were  dying,  but  always  in 
their  comrades'  arms,  and  listening  to  shouts 
of  victory  that  filled  the  air,  and  thinking  of 
the  righteous  cause  for  which  they  fought 
and  died.  In  the  last  moments  they  dreamed 
of  pleasant  burial  yards  at  home,  and  of 
graves  kept  green  by  loving,  grateful  friends  ; 
and  a  smile  of  joy  shone  on  their  wasted 
faces  that  wras  so  sweet,  that  it  seemed  a  hard 
ship  not  to  die  in  war.  They  painted  peace 
as  a  white  winged  dove  settling  down  upon 
a  cold  and  fading  earth.  Between  the  two 
it  was  plain  which  choice  a  boy  would  make, 
and  thus  art  served  the  state  and  king. 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

But  Verestchagin  painted  war;  he  painted 
war  so  true  to  life  that  as  we  look  upon  the 
scene,  we  long  for  peace.  He  painted  war 
as  war  has  ever  been,  and  as  war  will  ever 
be — a  horrible  and  ghastly  scene,  where 
men,  drunk  with  blind  frenzy  which  rulers 
say  is  patriotic  pride,  and  made  mad  by 
drums  and  fifes  and  smoke  and  shot  and 
shell  and  flowing  blood,  seek  to  maim  and 
wound  and  kill,  because  a  ruler  gives  the 
word.  He  paints  a  battle  field,  a  field  of  life 
and  death ;  a  field  of  carnage  and  of  blood ; 
and  who  are  these  that  fight  like  fiends  and 
devils  driven  to  despair?  What  cause  is 
this  that  makes  these  men  forget  that  they 
are  men,  and  vie  with  beasts  to  show  their 
cruel  thirst  for  blood  ?  They  shout  of  home 
and  native  land,  but  they  have  no  homes, 
and  the  owners  of  their  native  land  exist 
upon  their  toil  and  blood.  The  nobles  and 
princes,  for  whom  this  fight  is  waged,  are 
far  away  upon  a  hill,  beyond  the  reach  of 
shot  and  shell,  and  from  this  spot  they  watch 
their  slaves  pour  out  their  blood  to  satisfy 
their  rulers'  pride  and  lust  of  power.  What 
is  the  enemy  they  fight?  Men  like  them 
selves;  who  blindly  go  to  death  at  another 
king's  command,  slaves,  who  have  no  land, 
who  freely  give  their  toil  or  blood,  which- 

132 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

ever  one  their  rulers  may  demand.  These 
fighting  soldiers  have  no  cause  for  strife, 
but  their  rulers  live  by  kindling  in  their 
hearts  a  love  of  native  land,  a  love  that 
makes  them  hate  their  brother  laborers  of 
other  lands,  and  dumbly  march  to  death  to 
satisfy  a  king's  caprice.  But  let  us  look 
once  more  after  the  battle  has  been  fought. 
Here  we  see  the  wreck  and  ruin  of  the  strife; 
the  field  is  silent  now,  given  to  the  dead, 
the  beast  of  prey  and  night.  A  young  soldier 
lies  upon  the  ground ;  the  snow  is  falling 
fast  around  his  form ;  the  lonely  mountain 
peaks  rise  up  on  every  side ;  the  wreck  of 
war  is  all  about.  His  uniform  is  soiled  and 
stained,  a  spot  of  red  is  seen  upon  his  breast. 
It  is  not  the  color  that  his  country  wove 
upon  his  coat  to  catch  his  eye  and  bait  him 
to  his  death ;  it  is  hard  and  jagged  and  cold. 
It  is  his  life's  blood,  which  leaked  out 
through  a  hole  that  followed  the  point  of  a 
sabre  to  his  heart.  His  form  is  stiff  and 
cold,  for  he  is  dead.  The  cruel  wound  and 
icy  air  have  done  their  work.  The  govern 
ment  that  took  his  life  taught  this  poor  boy 
to  love  his  native  land ;  as  a  child  he  dreamed 
of  scenes  of  glory  and  of  power,  and  the 
great  wide  world  just  waiting  to  fall  captive 
to  his  magic  strength.  He  dreamed  of  war 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

and  strife,  of  victory  and  fame;  if  he  should 
die,  kind  hands  would  smooth  his  brow,  and 
loving  friends  would  keep  his  grave  and 
memory  green,  because  he  died  in  war.  But 
no  human  eye  is  there  at  last,  as  the  mist  of 
night  and  mist  of  death  shut  out  the  lonely 
mountains  from  his  sight.  The  snow  is  all 
around,  and  the  air  above  is  grey  with  falling 
flakes,  which  soon  will  hide  him  from  the 
world ;  and  when  the  summer  time  shall 
come  again,  no  one  can  tell  his  bleaching 
bones  from  all  the  rest.  The  only  life  upon 
the  scene  is  the  buzzard  slowly  circling  in 
the  air  above  his  head,  waiting  to  make  sure 
that  death  has  come.  The  bird  looks  down 
upon  the  boy,  into  the  eyes  through  which 
he  first  looked  out  upon  the  great,  wide 
world,  and  which  his  mother  fondly  kissed ; 
upon  these  eyes  the  buzzard  will  commence 
his  meal. 

Not  all  the  world  is  beautiful,  and  not  all 
of  life  is  good.  The  true  artist  has  no  right 
to  choose  the  lovely  spots  alone  and  make 
us  think  that  this  is  life.  He  must  bring  the 
world  before  our  eyes  and  make  us  read  and 
learn.  As  he  loves  the  true  and  noble,  he 
must  show  the  false  and  bad.  As  he  yearns 
for  true  equality,  he  must  paint  the  master 
and  the  slave.  He  must  tell  the  truth,  and 

134 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

tell  it  all,  must  tell  it  o'er  and  o'er  again,  till 
the  deafest  ear  will  listen  and  the  dullest 
mind  will  think.  He  must  not  swerve  to 
please  the  world  by  painting  only  pleasant 
sights  and  telling  only  lovely  tales.  He 
must  think,  and  paint,  and  write,  and  work, 
until  the  world  shall  learn  so  much  and  grow 
so  good,  that  the  true  will  all  be  beautiful 
and  all  the  real  be  ideal. 


'35 


THE -SKELETON 
IN -THE  CLOSET 


THE    SKELETON   IN    THE   CLOSET 

HE  closet  has  so  long  been 
allotted  to  the  skeleton  that 
we  have  come  to  regard  this 
room  as  its  fit  and  natural 
home ;  it  has  been  given  over 
to  this  guest  because  it  is  the 
darkest,  the  closest  and  least 
conspicuous  in  the  house.  The  door  can  be 
securely  fastened  and  only  now  and  then  can 
the  grating  bones  be  heard  by  the  world 
outside.  Still,  however  secluded  and  unused 
this  guest  chamber  seems  to  be,  and  how 
ever  carefully  we  bolt  the  door  and  darken 
every  chink  and  crevice  in  the  walls,  we  are 
ever  conscious  that  the  occupant  is  there, 
and  will  remain  until  the  house  is  closed, 
and  the  last  tenant  has  departed,  never  to 
return.  The  very  fact  that  we  try  so  hard 
to  keep  the  skeleton  in  its  proper  room, 
makes  it  the  more  impossible  to  forget  that 
it  is  there.  Now  and  then  we  awake  with  a 
start  at  the  thought  of  what  might  happen 
should  it  break  the  door  and  wander  through 
the  house,  and  then  stray  out  into  the  wide 
world,  and  tell  all  the  peaceful,  trusting 
neighbors  from  what  house  it  stole  away; 
and  yet  we  are  somehow  conscious  that  the 
rumor  of  its  dread  presence  has  already 

139 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

traveled  as  far  as  we  are  known.  Man  is  a 
wonderfully  adaptable  animal ;  he  fits  him 
self  easily  into  the  environment  where  he  is 
placed.  He  passes  from  infancy  to  child 
hood  and  from  childhood  to  boyhood  as 
smoothly  as  the  placid  river  flows  to  the 
waiting  sea.  Every  circumstance  and  sur 
rounding  of  his  life  seems  to  have  been  made 
for  him.  Suddenly  a  new  desire  takes  pos 
session  of  his  soul ;  he  turns  his  back  on  the 
home  of  his  childhood  days  and  goes  out 
alone.  In  a  little  time  a  new  family  is  reared 
about  him,  and  he  forgets  the  group  that 
clustered  round  his  father's  hearth.  He 
may  lose  a  leg  or  a  fortune,  and  he  soon 
conforms  to  his  changed  condition  and  life 
goes  on  as  naturally  and  as  easily  as  before. 
A  child  is  born  beneath  his  roof ;  it  takes  a 
place  within  his  heart  and  home,  and  in  a 
little  while  he  can  scarcely  think  of  the  day 
it  was  not  there.  Death  comes,  and  a  mem 
ber  of  his  little  band  is  carried  out,  but  time 
drops  its  healing  balm  upon  the  wounds  and 
life  goes  on  almost  unconscious  that  the 
dead  has  ever  lived.  But  while  we  adjust 
ourselves  naturally  to  all  things  living  and  to 
ever  varying  scenes,  the  skeleton  in  the 
closet  is  always  an  intruder,  no  matter  how 
long  it  may  have  dwelt  beneath  the  roof. 

140 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Even  though  we  may  forget  its  actual  pres 
ence  for  a  little  time,  still  no  scene  is  so  per 
fect  and  no  enjoyment  so  great  but  we  feel 
a  cloud  casting  its  shadow  across  our  happi 
ness  or  the  weight  of  some  burden  on  our 
soul;  and  when  we  stop  to  ask  the  cause, 
the  grinning  skeleton  reminds  us  that  it  is 
with  us  even  here. 

This  specter  stands  quite  apart  from  the 
other  sorrows  of  our  life  ;  age  seems  power 
less  to  forget,  and  time  will  not  bring  its 
ever-fresh,  recurring  scenes  to  erase  the 
memory  of  the  past.  This  is  not  because 
the  skeleton  is  really  such  a  dreadful  guest. 
The  kind  and  loving  ivy  creeps  tenderly 
around  each  yawning  scar  and  crumbling 
stone,  until  the  whole  ruin  is  covered  with 
a  lovely  green.  The  decaying  pile  stands 
free  and  open  to  the  sun  and  rain  and  air. 
It  does  not  hide  its  head  or  apologize  for 
the  blemishes  and  seams  that  mark  its  face, 
and  a  kind,  forgiving  nature  takes  the  ruin, 
scars  and  all,  and  blends  these  with  her 
softening  years  and  lovely  face  into  a  beau 
tiful  harmonious  whole  ;  but  unlike  the  ruin, 
the  skeleton  in  the  closet  is  a  neglected, 
outcast  child.  With  every  breath  we  insist 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  room.  We  re 
fuse  to  take  it  to  our  hearts  and  homes  and 

141 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

acknowledge  it  as  our  own.  We  seek  to 
strangle  it  to  death,  and  each  fresh  attempt 
not  only  shows  our  murderous  design,  but 
proves  that  the  skeleton  is  not  a  pulseless 
thing  but  is  endowed  with  immortal  life. 
The  brighter  the  fire-light  that  glows  around 
our  hearth,  the  more  desolate  and  drear 
sounds  the  wail  of  the  wind  outside,  for 
through  its  cold  blasts  wanders  the  outcast, 
whose  rightful  place  is  in  the  brightest  cor 
ner  of  the  room. 

Our  constant  annoyance  and  sorrow  at  this 
dread  presence  is  not  caused  by  the  way  the 
skeleton  behaves  to  us,  but  from  the  way  we 
treat  our  guest.  If  we  looked  it  squarely  in 
its  grinning  skull,  it  might  not  seem  so  very 
loathsome  to  the  sight.  It  has  the  right  to 
grin.  It  may  be  but  a  grim  smile  over  the 
consciousness  that  it  has  sounded  the  last 
sorrow  and  that  henceforth  no  greater  evils 
are  in  store ;  it  may  be  a  mocking,  sardonic 
grin  at  the  thought  of  our  discomfiture  over 
its  unwelcome  presence  and  the  knowledge 
that  we  cannot  drive  it  out. 

There  is  no  truer  index  to  real  character 
than  the  way  we  treat  the  skeletons  with 
which  we  live.  Some  run  to  the  closet  door, 
and  try  to  lock  it  fast  when  a  neighbor  comes 
their  way.  If  perchance  any  fear  of  dis- 

142 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

covery  is  felt,  they  stand  guard  outside  and 
solemnly  protest  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
room.  Their  anxiety  and  haste  plainly  show 
fear  lest  their  hated  guest  shall  reveal  its 
face;  and  of  course  there  rises  in  the  neigh 
bor's  mind  a  vision  of  a  skeleton  more  hor 
rible  by  far  than  the  one  inside  the  door  or 
than  anyone  can  be.  If  the  luckless  jailer 
really  fears  that  the  rattle  of  the  prisoner's 
bones  has  been  heard  outside,  he  feels  it  his 
duty  to  carefully  explain  or  tediously  cover 
up  every  detail  and  circumstance  that  caused 
the  presence  of  the  specter  in  the  house. 
All  this  can  only  show  that  the  guest  is  ter 
rible  to  behold  or  that  the  jailer  is  so  poor 
and  weak  that  he  himself  is  a  helpless 
prisoner  to  his  foolish  pride  and  unmanly 
fear.  It  can  only  serve  to  emphasize  the 
presence  he  tries  so  vainly  to  deny.  There 
are  also  those  who  know  that  their  skeleton 
has  been  seen,  or  who  having  lost  all  else 
but  this  persistent,  grinning  guest,  drag  it 
out  and  parade  it  in  the  world  to  gain  the 
sympathy  or  the  money  of  their  neighbors  and 
their  friends,  like  the  crippled  beggar  stand 
ing  on  the  corner  holding  out  his  hat  to  every 
passer-by.  The  true  man  neither  guiltily 
conceals  nor  anxiously  explains  nor  vulgarly 
parades.  He  lives  his  life  the  best  he  can, 

X43 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

and  lets  it  stand  for  what  it  is.  A  thousand 
idle  tales  may  be  true  or  false.  One  may 
have  seen  but  certain  things,  and  placed 
him  with  the  saints.  Another  little  soul, 
who  never  felt  the  breadth  and  depth  of  hu 
man  life,  may  have  seen  his  scars  alone,  and 
cast  him  out.  But  standing  by  his  side,  or 
clasping  his  strong,  sympathetic  hand,  no 
one  thinks  of  halos  or  scars  or  asks  an  ex- 

Elanation   of   this   or  that,  for  in  his  whole 
eing  is  felt  the  divine  presence  of  a  great 
soul,  who  has  lived  and  loved,  sinned  and 
suffered,  and  been  strengthened  and  puri 
fied  by  all. 

The  skeleton  is  really  kind  that  it  only 
grins  as  we  look  it  in  the  face.  Of  all  our 
household  it  has  received  the  hardest  treat 
ment  at  our  hands.  It  has  helped  us  more 
than  any  of  the  rest,  and  been  locked  in  the 
closet  for  its  pains.  It  may  perchance  have 
come  at  our  own  invitation,  bringing  us  the 
keenest,  wildest  joy  our  life  had  ever  known. 
We  gladly  drained  the  pleasure  to  the  dregs, 
and  then  coolly  locked  the  memory  close  in 
the  darkest  hole  that  we  could  find.  The  day 
it  came,  has  well  nigh  faded  from  our  minds, 
and  the  mad,  wild  joy  we  knew  can  never 
more  be  wakened  from  the  burned-out  pas 
sions  of  the  past,  but  the  skeleton,  which 

144 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

rose  up  grim  and  ghastly  from  the  dying 
flame,  remains  to  mock  and  jeer  and  make 
us  sad.  And  now  when  the  day  is  spent  and 
the  cup  is  drained,  we  charge  the  poor 
specter  with  our  lasting  pain,  and  forget  the 
joy  it  brought.  We  look  with  dread  at  these 
mocking,  grinning  bones,  which  we  cannot 
drive  away,  and  we  forget  the  time,  long, 
long  ago,  when  those  dry  sticks  were  cov 
ered  up  with  beautiful  and  tempting  flesh. 

It  may  be  that  we  shall  always  shudder  as 
we  hear  the  rattle  of  the  bones  when  we 
pass  the  closet  door,  but  in  justice  to  the  in 
mate,  we  should  give  him  credit  for  the  joys 
of  long  ago.  And  this  brings  us  back  to  the 
old  question  of  the  balancing  of  pain  and 
pleasure,  good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong. 
It  may  be  that  in  the  mysterious  adjustment 
of  nature's  balances,  a  moment  of  supreme 
bliss  will  outweigh  an  eternity  of  pain.  In 
the  infinite  economy,  which  life  counted  for 
the  more, — that  of  Napoleon,  or  the  poor 
French  peasant  that  passed  through  an  ob 
scure  existence  to  an  unknown  grave?  The 
brief  glory  of  Austerlitz  was  followed  by  the 
bitterness  of  Waterloo,  and  the  long  silence 
of  an  exile's  life,  while  the  peasant  trod  his 
short  path  without  ambition,  and  filled  a 
nameless  grave  without  regret.  Which  is 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

the  greater  and  finer,  the  blameless  life  of 
the  patient  brute,  or  the  winding,  devious 
path  of  a  human  soul  ?  It  is  only  the  dull 
level  that  brings  no  sorrow  or  regret.  It  is 
a  sterile  soil  where  no  weeds  will  grow,  and 
a  bare  closet  where  no  skeleton  will  dwell. 

Neither  should  we  remember  the  skeleton 
only  for  the  joy  it  brought;  from  the  day  it 
came,  it  has  been  the  greatest  benefactor  that 
our  life  has  known.  When  the  mad  delirium 
had  passed  away,  and  the  last  lingering  fra 
grance  was  almost  spent,  this  despised  skele 
ton  remained  as  the  sole  companion,  whose 
presence  should  forever  bind  us  back  to  those 
feelings  that  were  fresh  and  true  and  straight 
from  nature's  heart,  and  that  world  which 
once  was  green  and  young  and  filled  with 
pulsing  life.  As  the  shadows  gather  round 
our  head,  and  our  once-straying  feet  fall  me 
chanically  into  the  narrow  path  so  straight 
and  even  at  the  farther  end,  we  may  shudder 
now  and  then  at  the  thought  of  the  grim 
skeleton  whose  life  is  so  far  removed  from 
our  sober  later  selves ;  but  with  the  shudder 
comes  a  spark,  a  flash  of  that  great,  natural 
light  and  heat  that  once  possessed  this  totter 
ing  frame,  and  gave  a  glow  of  feeling  and  a 
strength  of  purpose  so  deep  and  all-control 
ling  that  the  artificial  life  of  an  artificial  world 
seems  no  more  than  a  dim  candle  shining 
by  the  glorious  sun. 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

It  is  the  exhausted  emotions  of  age,  which 
men  call  prudence,  that  are  ever  warning 
youth  of  the  follies  of  its  sins.  It  is  the  grin 
ning  skeleton,  speaking  truly  from  the  mem 
ory  of  other  days,  that  insists  that  life's  morn 
ing  held  the  halcyon  hours.  Does  old  age 
outlive  the  follies  of  childhood  or  does  the 
man  outgrow  the  wisdom  of  youth?  The 
most  vociferous  preachers  are  often  those 
whose  natural  spirits  have  led  them  to  drink 
the  deepest  of  life.  They  are  so  foolish  as 
to  think  that  others  can  be  taught  by  their 
experiences,  and  mumbling  grey-beards  en 
dorse  the  excellence  and  wisdom  of  the  ser 
mons  that  they  preach.  They  are  not  wise 
enough  to  know  that  their  prattle  is  more 
vain  and  foolish  than  the  babblings  of  their 
childhood  days.  It  was  the  growing,  vital 
sap  of  life  that  made  them  children  years 
ago ;  it  is  the  icy,  palsying  touch  of  age  that 
makes  them  babbling,  preaching  children 
once  again.  As  well  might  the  calm  and 
placid  lake  teach  the  beauty  of  repose  to  the 
boiling,  seething  cataract,  that  thunders  down 
Niagara's  gulf.  When  the  troubled  waters 
shall  have  reached  the  lake  they  shall  be 
placid  too.  Nature  is  wiser  far  than  man. 
She  makes  the  first  childhood  precede  the 
second.  If  the  age  of  prudence  came  with 

H7 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

youth,  it  would  be  a  dull  and  prosy  world 
for  a  little  time ;  then  life  would  be  extinct 
upon  the  earth  and  death  triumphant  over 
all. 

But  these  are  the  smallest  reasons  why  we 
should  venerate  the  neglected  skeleton, 
which  we  have  ruthlessly  cast  into  the  closet 
as  if  it  were  a  hideous  thing.  This  uncanny 
skeleton,  ever  thrusting  its  unwelcome  bones 
into  our  presence  and  our  lives,  has  been  the 
most  patient,  persistent,  constant  teacher 
that  all  our  years  have  known.  We  look 
backward  through  the  long  dim  vista  of  the 
past,  back  to  the  little  trusting  child  that 
once  nestled  on  its  mother's  breast  and  from 
whose  loving  lips  and  gentle  soul  it  first  was 
told  of  life,  its  temptations  and  its  sins; 
backward  to  her,  whose  whole  thought  was 
a  benediction  to  the  life  that  was  once  a  por 
tion  of  herself.  We  remember  still  this 
mother's  words  teaching  us  the  way  to  live 
and  telling  us  the  way  to  die.  We  always 
knew  that  no  selfish  thought  inspired  a 
single  word  she  said  and  yet  time  and  time 
again  we  strayed  and  wandered  from  the 
path  she  pointed  out.  We  could  not  keep 
the  road  and  after  while  we  did  not  try. 
Again  our  teacher  told  us  of  the  path.  He, 
too,  was  good  and  kind  and  knew  the  way 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

we  ought  to  go,  and  showed  us  all  the  bad 
results  of  sin,  and  still  we  stumbled  on.  The 

E  readier  came  and  told  us  of  the  beauteous 
eaven,  straight  at  the  other  end  of  the  nar 
row  path,  and  the  yawning  gulf  of  hell  to 
which  our  shifting  footsteps  led ;  but  we 
heeded  not  his  solemn  tones,  though  they 
seemed  to  come  with  the  authority  of  God 
himself.  As  the  years  went  on,  our  mother's 
voice  was  stilled,  the  teacher's  words  were 
hushed,  the  preacher's  threats  became  an 
empty,  hollow  sound ;  and  in  their  place 
came  the  grinning  skeleton,  born  of  our  own 
desires  and  deeds ;  less  loving  than  the  gen 
tle  mother,  more  real  and  life-like  than  the 
teacher,  saner  and  truer  than  the  preacher's 
idle  words.  It  was  ever  present  and  per 
sistent;  it  was  a  portion  of  our  very  selves. 

We  detested  and  feared  the  hated  thing; 
we  locked  it  in  the  closet,  and  denied  that  it 
was  there  ;  but  through  the  brightness  of  the 
day  and  the  long  and  silent  watches  of  the 
night,  we  heard  its  rattling  bones,  and  felt  its 
presence  at  our  side.  No  teacher  of  our 
youth  was  like  that  grim  and  ghastly  skele 
ton,  which  we  tried  to  hide  away.  The 
schoolmaster  of  our  early  life  took  our  fresh, 
young,  plastic  minds  and  sought  to  crowd 
them  full  of  useless,  unrelated  facts  that 

149 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

served  no  purpose  through  the  years  that 
were  to  come.  These  lessons  that  our 
teacher  made  us  learn  by  rote  filled  so  small 
a  portion  of  our  daily  lives  that  most  of  them 
were  forgotten  when  the  school-house  door 
was  closed.  When  now  and  then  we  found 
some  use  for  a  trifling  thing  that  we  had 
learned  through  years  at  school,  we  were 
suprised  to  know  that  the  pedagogue  had 
taught  us  even  this.  In  those  early  days  it 
seemed  to  us  that  life  would  consist  of  one 
long  examination  in  which  we  should  be 
asked  the  names  of  states,  the  rule  of  three, 
and  the  words  the  Romans  used  for  this  and 
that.  All  that  we  were  taught  of  the  great 
world  outside  and  the  problem  that  would 
one  day  try  our  souls,  was  learned  from  the 
copy  books  where  we  wrote  the  same  old 
maxim  until  all  the  paper  was  used  up.  In 
after  years,  we  learned  that,  while  the  copy 
book  might  have  taught  us  how  to  write  in 
a  stilted,  unused  hand,  still  all  its  maxims 
were  untrue. 

We  left  the  school  as  ignorant  of  life  as  we 
commenced,  nay,  we  might  more  easily  have 
learned  its  lesson  without  the  false,  mislead 
ing  theories  we  were  taught  were  true.  When 
the  doors  were  opened  and  the  wide  world 
met  us  face  to  face,  we  tested  what  we 

150 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

learned,  and  found  it  false,  and  then  we 
blundered  on  alone.  We  were  taught  by  life 
that  the  fire  and  vigor  of  our  younger  years 
could  not  be  governed  by  the  platitudes  of 
age.  Nature  was  ever  present  with  her 
strong  and  earthly  grasp,  her  keen  desires, 
her  white  hot  flame.  We  learned  the  pre 
cepts  of  the  books,  but  we  lived  the  life  that 
nature  taught. 

Our  pathetic  blunders  and  mistakes,  and 
the  skeleton  that  followed  in  their  wake,  re 
mained  to  teach  us  what  was  false  and  point 
to  what  was  true.  This  grim,  persistent 
teacher  made  but  little  of  the  unimportant 
facts  that  the  schoolmaster  sought  to  make 
us  learn,  and  it  laughed  to  scorn  the  preach 
er's  doctrine,  that  in  some  way  we  could 
avoid  the  results  of  our  mistakes  and  sins. 
It  did  not  preach,  it  took  its  place  beside  us 
as  another  self  and  by  its  presence  sought 
to  make  us  know  that  we  could  not  be  at 
peace  until  we  clasped  it  to  our  breast  and 
freely  accepted  the  unwelcome  thing  as  a 
portion  of  our  lives. 

Only  the  smallest  fraction  that  we  learned 
in  youth  was  assimilated  and  made  a  portion 
of  ourselves;  the  rest  faded  so  completely 
that  it  seemed  never  to  have  been.  The 
teacher  soon  became  a  dim,  uncertain  mem- 

IS1 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

ory  of  the  past,  whose  voice  had  long  since 
died  away;  but  the  skeleton  in  the  closet 
never  wearied  nor  grew  old.  It  ever  made 
us  learn  again  the  lesson  we  would  fain  for 
get;  opened  at  each  succeeding  period  of 
our  lives  the  pages  we  would  gladly  put  away, 
until,  at  last,  the  ripening  touch  of  time  and 
the  specter's  constant  presence  made  us 
know.  From  the  day  it  came  beneath  our 
roof,  it  remained  the  liveliest,  wisest,  most 
persistent  member  of  the  family  group,  the 
tireless,  watchful  teacher,  who  would  neither 
sleep  nor  allow  its  pupil  to  forget. 

It  may  be  that  there  are  lives  so  barren 
and  uneventful  that  this  guest  passes  ever 
by  their  door,  but  unfortunate  indeed  is  that 
abode  where  it  will  not  dwell.  The  wide 
vistas  can  be  seen  only  from  the  mountain 
top,  and  the  infinite  depths  of  life  can  be 
sounded  only  by  the  soul  that  has  been 
softened  and  hallowed  by  the  sanctifying 
touch  of  misery  and  sin. 

Life  is  a  never-ending  school,  and  the 
really  important  lessons  all  tend  to  teach  man 
his  proper  relation  to  the  environment  where 
he  must  live.  With  wild  ambitions  and  de 
sires  untamed,  we  are  spawned  out  into  a 
shoreless  sea  of  moving  molecules  of  life, 
each  seperate  atom  journeying  on  an  un- 

-5*        * 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

known  course,  regardless  of  the  countless 
other  lives  it  meets  as  it  blindly  rushes  on ; 
no  lights  nor  headlands  stand  to  point  the 
proper  way  the  voyager  should  take,  he  is 
left  to  sail  an  untried  bark  across  an  angry 
sea.  If  no  disaster  should  befall,  it  does 
not  show  that  the  traveler  is  wise  or  good, 
but  that  his  ambitions  and  desires  are  few 
or  he  has  kept  close  inside  the  harbor  line. 
At  first  we  seek  to  swim  the  flood,  to  scale 
the  rocky  heights,  to  clutch  the  twinkling 
stars.  Of  course  we  fail  and  fall,  and  the 
scars  our  passions  and  ambitions  leave,  re 
main,  though  all  our  particles  are  made 
anew  year  after  year.  We  learn  at  last  to 
leave  the  stars  to  shine  where  they  belong, 
to  take  all  things  as  they  are  and  adjust  our 
lives  to  what  must  be. 

The  philosophy  of  life  can  come  only  from 
those  experiences  that  leave  lasting  scars  and 
results  that  will  not  die.  Rather  than  seek 
to  cover  up  these  gaping  wounds,  we  should 
accept  with  grace  the  tales  they  tell,  and 
show  them  as  trophies  of  the  strife  we  have 
passed  through.  Those  scars  are  honorable 
that  have  brought  our  lives  into  greater  har 
mony  with  the  universal  power.  For  resist 
it  as  we  will,  this  infinite,  loving  presence 
will  ever  claim  us  as  a  portion  of  its  self  until 

'53 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

our  smallest  fragments  return  once  more  to 
earth,  and  are  united  with  the  elements  from 
which  we  came. 

No  life  can  be  rounded  and  complete  with 
out  the  education  that  the  skeleton  alone 
can  give.  Until  it  came  we  never  knew  the 
capacities  of  the  human  soul.  We  had  learned 
by  rote  to  be  forgiving,  kind  and  true.  But 
the  anguish  of  the  human  soul  cannot  be 
told — it  must  be  felt  or  never  known.  That 
charity  born  of  true  comradeship,  which  is 
the  highest  and  holiest  sentiment  of  life,  can 
be  taught  by  the  skeleton  alone.  The  self- 
righteous,  who  prate  of  forgiveness  to  their 
fellow  men  and  who  look  down  upon  their 
sinning  brothers  from  above,  are  hypocrites 
or  fools.  They  either  have  not  lived  or  else 
desire  to  pass  for  something  they  are  not. 
No  one  can  understand  the  devious,  miry 
paths  trodden  by  another  soul  unless  he  him 
self  has  wandered  through  the  night. 

Those  placid,  human  lives  that  have 
moved  along  a  narrow,  even  path;  that 
learned  by  rote  the  lessons  that  the  churches 
and  the  schools  have  ever  taught ;  whose  per 
fection  consists  in  refraining  from  doing 
certain  things  in  certain  ways;  who  never 
had  a  noble  thought  or  felt  a  great  desire  to 
help  their  fellow  men — those  blameless,  aim- 

'54 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

less,  worthless  souls,  are  neither  good  nor 
bad.  They  neither  feel  nor  think;  no 
skeleton  would  deem  it  worth  its  while  to 
come  inside  their  door. 

The  world  judges  the  conduct  of  youth  by 
the  standards  of  age.  Even  when  due  al 
lowance  is  made  for  the  inexperience  and 
haste  of  the  young,  it  is  assumed  that  youth 
and  age  are  measured  by  the  calendar  alone. 
Few  have  ever  been  wise  enough  to  know 
that  every  passion  and  circumstance  must 
be  fully  weighed,  before  an  honest  verdict 
can  be  written  down ;  and  that  therefore  only 
the  infinite  can  judge  a  human  soul. 

Though  accursed,  doubted,  and  despised, 
Nature  ever  persists  in  her  relentless  plan. 
She  would  make  us  learn  the  lessons  that 
youth  so  easily  forgets.  She  finds  us  head 
strong,  unreasoning,  and  moved  by  the  same 
feelings  that  sway  the  brute.  She  decrees 
that  every  act,  however  blind  or  wilful, 
must  leave  its  consequences  on  our  lives, 
and  these  immortal  consequences  we  treat 
as  skeletons  and  lock  them  up.  But  these 
uncanny  specters  wrap  us  closely  in  their 
bony  arms;  they  ever  peer  with  sightless 
eyes  into  our  soul ;  they  are  with  us  if  we 
sleep  or  wake,  and  their  persistent  presence 
will  not  let  us  sleep.  It  is  the  hated,  im- 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

Erisoned  skeleton  that  we  vainly  sought  to 
ide  away,  that  takes  an  untamed,  fiery  soul 
within  its  cruel,  loving  clasp,  and  holds  it 
closely  in  its  unforgiving  grasp  until  the  vain 
longings  and  wild  desires  of  youth  are  sub 
dued,  and  cooled,  and  the  deeper  harmo 
nies  of  life  are  learned.  It  is  the  hated  skel 
eton  that  finds  within  our  breast  a  heart  of 
flint  and  takes  this  hard  and  pulseless  thing 
and  scars  and  twists  and  melts  it  in  a 
thousand  tortuous  ways  until  the  stony  mass 
is  purged  and  softened  and  is  sensitive  to 
every  touch. 

It  is  this  same  despised  skeleton  that  finds 
us  vain  and  boastful  and  critical  of  other's 
sins,  that  watches  every  word  we  speak  and 
even  each  unuttered  thought;  it  is  with  us 
when  we  tightly  draw  our  robes  and  pass  our 
fellow  on  the  other  side ;  it  hears  us  when 
we  seek  to  show  how  good  we  are  by  boast 
ing  of  our  neighbor's  sins;  for  every  spot  of 
black  or  red  that  we  see  upon  another's  robes, 
it  points  its  bony  fingers  to  a  scar  upon  our 
heart,  to  remind  us  that  we  are  like  the  rest; 
and  the  same  finger  ever  points  us  to  our 
wounds  until  we  feel  and  understand  that 
the  clay  the  Master  used  for  us  was  as  weak 
and  poor  as  that  from  which  he  made  the 
rest. 

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A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

However  blind  and  stubborn  we  may  be, 
however  long  we  deny  the  lesson  that  the 
skeleton  would  teach,  still  it  will  not  let  us 
go  until  with  perfect  peace  and  harmony  we 
look  at  all  the  present  and  the  past,  at  all 
that  was,  and  all  that  is,  and  feel  no  regrets 
for  what  is  gone,  and  no  fears  for  what  must 
come.  It  may  be  that  our  stubborn,  stiff- 
necked  soul  will  still  persist  until  the  hair  is 
white  and  the  heavy  shadows  hang  about  our 
heads,  but  the  skeleton  with  his  soothing, 
softening  ally,  time,  sits  with  the  last  watch 
ers  at  our  suffering  bed,  and  goes  if  need 
be,  to  the  silent  grave,  where  alike  the  dark 
est  crimson  spot  and  the  softest,  purest  clay 
are  reunited  once  again  with  the  loving,  uni 
versal  mother  who  has  forgiven  all  and  con 
quered  all.  It  matters  not  how  high  we 
seem  to  climb,  or  what  the  careless  world 
may  think  for  good  or  ill.  It  matters  not 
how  many  small  ambitions  we  may  seem  to 
have  achieved.  Even  the  unworthy  cannot 
be  forever  soothed  by  the  hollow  voice  of 
fame.  All  triumphs  are  futile  without  the 
victory  over  self;  and  when  the  triumph 
over  self  is  won,  there  are  no  more  battles 
to  be  faught,  for  all  the  world  is  then  at 
peace.  It  is  the  skeleton  in  the  closet  point 
ing  ever  to  the  mistakes  and  maladjustments 

'57 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

of  our  past,  the  skeleton  standing  there 
before  our  gaze  that  makes  us  still  remem 
ber  where  our  lives  fell  short;  that  teaches 
us  so  slowly  but  so  surely  to  turn  from  the 
unworthy  victories  and  the  dire  defeats  of 
life  to  the  mastery  of  ourselves.  It  is  the 
skeleton  from  whom  we  learn  that  we  can 
live  without  the  world,  but  not  without 
ourselves. 

Without  the  skeleton  we  could  never  feel 
another's  sorrow,  or  know  another's  pain. 
Philosophy  and  theology  cannot  tell  us  how 
another's  life  became  a  hopeless  wreck.  It 
is  ourselves  alone  that  reveals  the  precipice 
along  which  every  footpath  leads.  It  is 
from  life  we  learn  that  it  is  but  an  accident 
when  we  fall,  and  equally  an  accident  when 
we  keep  the  path.  The  pupil  of  the  schools 
may  look  down  with  pitying  glance  upon 
the  unfortunate  victim  of  what  seems  to  be 
his  sin.  He  may  point  to  a  love  that  will 
forgive  and  kindly  plead  with  him  to  take 
another  path,  but  the  wayfarer  that  the  skel 
eton  has  taught  will  clasp  this  fellow  mortal 
to  his  heart,  for  in  his  face  he  sees  but  the 
reflection  of  himself.  The  wise  and  good 
may  forgive  the  evil  and  the  wrong,  but 
only  the  sinner  knows  that  there  is  no  sin. 

The  charity  that  is  born  of  life  and  sin  is 

158 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

not  fine  because  of  its  effect  on  some  one 
else,  but  for  what  it  does  for  us.  True 
charity  is  only  the  sense  of  the  kinship  of 
all  living  things.  This  is  the  charity  that 
neither  humiliates  nor  offends.  It  is  the 
sense  that  brings  a  new  meaning  to  life  and 
a  new  purpose  to  the  soul. 

Let  us  do  simple  justice  to  this  neglected, 
outcast  guest,  the  useful,  faithful  teacher  of 
our  lives.  Let  us  open  the  closet  door,  and 
let  the  skeleton  come  out,  and  lock  the 
schoolmaster  in  its  place.  Let  us  leave  this 
faithful  friend  to  roam  freely  at  its  will.  Let 
us  look  it  squarley  in  the  face  with  neither 
fear  or  shame,  but  with  gratitude  for  the  les 
sons  it  has  taught.  It  may  be  that  the  jeering 
crowd  will  point  in  scorn  as  they  see  us  with 
the  grewsome  figure  at  our  side,  but  when 
we  fully  learn  the  lesson  that  it  came  to  teach, 
we  shall  need  to  look  no  more  without  for 
the  approval  or  disapproval  of  our  acts,  but 
seek  to  satisfy  ourselves  alone.  Let  us  place 
a  new  chair  beside  the  hearth,  in  the  cosiest 
nook,  and  bid  the  skeleton  take  its  place  as 
the  worthiest  guest.  Let  us  neither  parade 
nor  hide  our  new-found  friend,  but  treat  it 
as  a  fact  of  life — a  fact  that  is,  a  fact  that  had 
the  right  to  be,  and  a  fact  that  taught  us  how 
to  find  ourselves.  Let  us  not  forget  the 


A  Persian  Pearl  and  other  Essays 

parents,  who  watch  us  in  our  youth,  and  the 
friends  that  were  ever  good  and  true.  But 
above  all,  let  us  remember  this  grim  and 
silent  teacher,  who  never  neglected  or  for 
got,  who  showed  us  life  as  only  it  could  show, 
who  opened  up  new  vistas  to  our  soul,  who 
touched  our  human  hearts,  who  made  us 
know  and  love  our  fellowman,  who  softened 
and  mellowed  and  purified  our  souls  until 
we  felt  the  kinship  that  we  bore  to  all  living 
things.  Until  it  came  we  knew  only  the 
surface  of  the  world.  Before  it  came,  we 
had  tasted  of  the  shallow  cup  of  joy  and  the 
bitter  cup  of  pain,  but  we  needed  this  to 
teach  us  from  the  anguish  of  the  soul  that 
there  is  a  depth  profound  and  great,  where 
pain  and  pleasure  both  are  one.  That  there 
is  a  life  so  deep  and  true  that  earth's  rewards 
and  penalties  alike  are  but  a  hollow  show; 
that  there  is  a  conquest  of  ourselves,  which 
brings  perfect  peace  and  perfect  rest. 


1 60 


PRINTED  FOR  C.L.RICKETTS 
BY  R.  R.  DONNELLEY  &  SONS 
COMPANY,  AT  THE  LAKESIDE 
PRESS,  CHICAGO,  ILL.  MCMII 


14  DAY  USE 

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